Recreations  of 
an  Anthologist 


By 
BRANDER      MATTHEWS 


Author  of  "Ballads  of  Books," 
"American  Familiar  Verse,  "etc. 


NEW     YORK    2;          x         «          2: 

DODD,    MEAD    &r    COMPANY 
2;          2;          -x.          -x,          ^1904 


COPYRIGHT,  1896,  1899,  1901,  1904,  BY 
DODD,    MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    1903,    1904,   BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

COPYRIGHT,    1903,    1904,   BY 
HARPER  &  BROTHERS 


PUBLISHED  SEPTEMBER,  1904 


CONTENTS 

I   BY  WAY  OF  INTRODUCTION  i 

II   A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS  13 

III  UNWRITTEN  BOOKS  37 

IV  SEED-CORN  FOR  STORIES  50 
V   AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE  69 

VI   AMERICAN  EPIGRAMS  103 

VII   A  NOTE  ON  THE  QUATRAIN  130 

VIII    CAROLS  OF  COOKERY  147 

IX    RECIPES  IN  RHYME  164 

X   THE  UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUN- 

NER  186 
XI   THE  STRANGEST  FEAT  OF  MODERN  MAGIC    209 


262613 


RECREATIONS    OF    AN 
ANTHOLOGIST 


BY  WAY   OF   INTRODUCTION 

PRYING  eyes  all   over   the   world 
are  now  seeking  to  spy  out  the 
secret  motives  of  every   human 
action  and   to   find  an   explana 
tion,  more    or  less  plausible,    for  all    the 
freakish   deeds   and   foolish   misdeeds    of 
mankind.     But  no  one  of  these  inquirers 
into   the   recesses   of  man's   being  has  yet 
come   forward  with  a  wholly  satisfactory 
explanation  of  the  reasons  which  lead  so 
many  of  us  to  find  our  chief  pleasure  in 
the  seemingly  idle  pastime  of  "making  a 
collection,"  as  it  is  called.     Why  is  it  that 
many  a  man  puts  his  whole  heart  in  this 


•  ;*ECREATXONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

gathering  together  of  the  objects  of  his 
seeking?  There  are  not  a  few  otherwise 
sensible  beings,  good  citizens,  voters, 
church-members,  who  act  on  the  axiom  that 
the  chief  end  of  man  is  to  "make  a  collec 
tion,  " — whether  of  books  or  of  auto 
graphs,  of  fans  or  of  playing  cards,  of 
postage-stamps  or  of  pictorial  posters,  of 
coins  or  of  counterfeit  money. 

Of  course,  there  is  no  denying  that  any 
collection,  a  string  of  buttons  or  a  shelfful 
of  boot-heels  has  some  scientific  value;  and 
more  than  once  has  the  mere  heaper  up  of 
unconsidered  trifles  rendered  inestimable 
service  to  the  avid  investigator  into  the 
records  of  human  endeavor.  The  acquisi 
tive  energy  of  the  coin-collectors  has  led  to 
the  lighting  up  of  many  a  dark  spot  in 
chronology;  and  the  accumulative  zeal  of 
the  autograph-collectors  has  preserved  writ 
ings  which  have  helped  to  elucidate  many 
a  doubtful  point  in  history.  Even  a  collec 
tion  of  the  buttons  of  precocious  poets  or  a 
gathering  of  the  boot-heels  of  famous 


BY  WAY  OF  INTRODUCTION 

female  authors  might  supply  suggestive 
material  to  an  inquisitive  critic  like  Saint- 
Beuve,  who  was  forever  striving  to  inter 
pret  the  works  of  every  writer  by  a  pains 
taking  analysis  of  all  the  petty  facts  of  his 
or  her  personality. 

But  however  much  the  collector  may 
boast  of  the  utility  of  his  labors,  he  knows 
perfectly  well  that  his  motive  is  not  utili 
tarian.  If  he  is  honest  with  himself,  he 
will  admit  humbly  that  the  attraction  of 
"making  a  collection"  does  not  lie  in  the 
ultimate  value  of  the  collection  when  it 
shall  be  completed  (as  far  as  that  may  be 
possible).  In  the  immense  majority  of 
cases  the  beginnings  of  the  collection  were 
accidental  and  wholly  devoid  of  purpose. 
Sometimes  as  the  collection  grew,  the  col 
lector  has  become  conscious  of  its  possible 
importance  to  science;  but  the  charm  of 
collecting  is  wholly  independent  of  the 
actual  value  of  the  things  accumulated. 
Indeed,  the  collection  seems  to  lose  some  of 
its  interest  the  nearer  it  approaches  to  com- 
3 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

pletion;  and  it  is  then  increasingly  in  danger 
of  being  disposed  of  hastily  by  auction,  by 
private  sale  or  by  donation  to  some 
museum,  so  that  the  former  owner  may  be 
set  free  to  start  again  on  the  joyful  labor  he 
delights  in.  The  zest  of  the  sport  resides  in 
the  pursuit  of  the  game,  and  not  in  the 
counting  of  the  spoils  of  the  chase.  "To 
have  and  to  hold"  is  not  the  collector's 
motto  but  "to  seek  and  to  find." 

It  is  this  accumulation  that  gives  the  col 
lector  his  keenest  pleasure,  this  adding 
together  of  specimen  after  specimen,  with 
little  thought  as  to  the  importance  to  any 
investigator  of  the  material  thus  amassed. 
The  collector  is  not  conscious  of  any 
altruistic  wish  to  help  along  some  unknown 
scientific  observer.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
for  himself  he  is  working;  he  is  frankly 
selfish, — not  to  say  greedy.  He  is  on  the 
alert  for  the  objects  of  his  desire,  he  is 
capturing  them,  storing  them  up  one  by 
one,  setting  them  up  over  against  each 
other,  solely  for  his  own  enjoyment,  to 


BY  WAY  OF  INTRODUCTION 

satisfy  some  inner  need  of  his  own  soul. 
And  this  is  why  the  true  collector  is 
almost  as  likely  to  be  miserly  as  he  is 
to  be  liberal.  Now  and  then  there  is  a 
collector  of  books  or  of  coins  who  is 
notorious  for  the  pitiful  delight  he  takes 
in  denying  all  access  to  his  treasures,  over 
which  he  prefers  to  gloat  in  contemptible 
solitude.  The  spring  which  moves  these 
meaner  collectors  is  probably  a  primitive 
instinct  for  acquisition;  it  is  a  belated  sur 
vival  of  an  ancestral  trait,  useful  enough, 
once  upon  a  time,  to  that  remote  progenitor 
of  ours  who  was  Probably  Arboreal  and 
who  needed  to  lay  up  stores  of  all  sorts 
against  the  coming  of  winter.  And  in  the 
pleasure  the  collector  takes  in  arranging 
and  in  re-arranging  the  things  he  has 
brought  together  with  an  infinitude  of 
effort,  perhaps  we  ought  to  recognize  a 
cropping-out  of  that  other  rudimentary  in 
stinct  which  is  known  as  the  play-impulse. 
But  here,  as  elsewhere  in  the  long  story  of 
the  ascent  of  man,  we  can  see  a  constant 
5 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

struggle  upward.  That  which  begins  be 
cause  of  the  brute  instinct  of  acquisition,  a 
wanton  accumulation  without  regard  to  the 
value  of  the  things  heaped  up  or  to  the 
utility  of  the  collection  itself,  is  evolved  in 
time  into  something  higher;  and  those  who 
begin  by  collecting  buttons  or  boot-heels 
may  develop  at  last  into  expert  numisma 
tists  or  learned  archaeologists.  Thus  it  is, 
that  civilized  man,  in  "this  so-called  twen 
tieth  century"  of  ours,  finds  his  profit  in 
the  survival  of  mere  monkey-tricks  inher 
ited  from  that  distant  ancestor  who  hung 
suspended  by  his  prehensile  tail  from  the 
boughs  of  the  forest  primeval. 

So  far  as  I  am  aware  no  one  has  hitherto 
drawn  attention  to  the  obvious  fact  that  the 
motives  of  the  collector  of  buttons  and  of 
boot-heels  are  closely  akin  to  those  of  the 
literary  anthologists  who  gather  into  a  sin 
gle  volume  the  scattered  poems  or  prose 
specimens  which  seem  to  belong  together. 
For  his  own  idle  amusement  at  first,  he  col 
lects  the  poems  of  varied  authorship  which 
6 


BY  WAY  OF  INTRODUCTION 

deal  with  the  same  theme  or  which  are  writ 
ten  in  the  same  form,  considering  in  the  one 
case  the  divergency  of  treatment  and  in  the 
other  the  divergency  of  topic.  He  may  be 
a  lover  of  the  Nicotian  weed,  seeking  out 
all  the  ballads  which  have  been  indited  in 
praise  of  tobacco;  or  he  may  be  a  lover  of 
soulful  verse,  delighting  in  the  variety  of 
the  lyric  as  it  flourished  in  English  under 
Elizabeth  or  under  Victoria.  And  for  his 
own  sole  pleasure  he  begins  by  bringing 
together  the  more  accessible  poems  of  the 
type  in  which  his  interest  has  been  awak 
ened.  Then  he  finds  himself  wondering 
whether  there  are  not  many  other  poems  of 
this  same  type  that  he  has  failed  to  find; 
and  all  at  once  he  is  launched  on  a  voyage 
of  discovery  from  which  he  returns  with 
spoil  of  all  sorts,  and  in  the  course  of  which 
he  makes  acquaintance  with  many  a  far 
country. 

When  he  contemplates  the  treasures  he 
has  thus  been    enabled  to    acquire    as    the 
result  of  his  diligent  search,  and  more  espe- 
7 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

cially  when  he  notes  how  much  the  charm 
of  certain  of  his  old  favorites  has  been  en 
hanced  by  contrast  with  certain  of  his  more 
recent  discoveries,  then  he  is  moved  to  share 
his  pleasure  with  others.  He  cannot  help 
feeling  sure  that  what  has  given  him  so 
much  satisfaction  is  likely  also  to  delight  not 
a  few  lovers  of  literature,  whose  attention 
has  not  hitherto  been  attracted  in  that 
special  direction.  So  he  pursues  his  search, 
and  he  sets  his  collection  in  order,  and  he 
seeks  faithfully  for  the  missing  specimens; 
and  in  time  he  publishes  the  result  of  his 
gleanings.  Thus  it  was  that  Bell  was 
inspired  to  present  to  the  public  his  striking 
selection  from  the  beautiful  songs  which 
besprinkle  the  works  of  the  British  drama 
tists.  And  thus  it  was  that  the  present 
writer  has  been  moved  to  edit  three  several 
anthologies  as  different  in  theme  as  may  be. 
Toems  of  American  Patriotism'  was  pub 
lished  in  1882  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons; 
and  it  was  reissued  by  the  same  firm  in 
1898,  when  it  was  included  in  a  series  of 

8 


BY  WAY  OF  INTRODUCTION 

reading-books  for  schools.  'Ballads  of 
Books'  was  published  in  1886  by  George 
J.  Coombes;  and  it  served  as  the  founda 
tion  for  a  volume  of  the  same  title  pre 
pared  by  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  and  pub 
lished  in  London  in  1888  by  Longmans, 
Green  &  Co.  The  original  American 
collection  was  reissued  in  New  York  in 
1899  by  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.  'American 
Familiar  Verse:  vers  de  societe'  was  pub 
lished  in  1904  by  Longmans,  Green  & 
Co.  as  a  volume  of  the  Wampum  Li 
brary  of  American  Literature.'  A  fourth 
volume,  planned  long  ago,  and  not  yet 
brought  to  completion,  will  select  and  set  in 
order  the  chief  poems  which  deal  with  the 
past  history  and  which  celebrate  the  present 
beauty  of  New  York. 

The  collection  of  the  material  for  these 
several  volumes,  the  hunting  up  of  the 
poems  which  were  not  at  hand,  the  sifting 
out  of  the  verses  which  were  felt  to  be  un 
worthy  of  their  fellows,  the  preparation  of 
an  authentic  text  and  of  proper  introduc- 
9 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

tory  notes, — all  this  was  a  labor  of  love, 
no  doubt,  but  it  was  a  labor,  for  all  that, 
a  labor  the  weight  of  which  no  one  will  be 
disposed  to  deny  who  has  ever  ventured  on 
the  undertaking  of  an  anthology.  But  it 
was  a  labor  that  of  a  certainty  paid  for 
itself  in  an  increase  of  knowledge  and  in  a 
broadening  of  outlook.  And  the  search  for 
the  poems  demanding  inclusion  in  one  or 
another  of  these  three  volumes  led  the 
writer  into  many  a  by-path  of  letters.  It 
increased  his  liking  for  the  curiosities  of 
literature,  as  the  elder  Disraeli  had  termed 
them, — a  liking  originally  awakened  by  a 
boyish  perusal  of  Disraeli's  own  pages.  To 
gratify  this  liking  the  papers  in  the  present 
volume  have  been  written. 

They  are,  for  the  most  part,  minor 
anthologies,  —  collections  not  important 
enough  or  not  bulking  big  enough  to  de 
mand  independent  existence  in  a  volume, 
each  by  itself.  And  some  of  them  are  fairly 
to  be  called  by-products  of  the  longer  and 
more  important  collections.  For  example, 

10 


BY  WAY  OF  INTRODUCTION 

the  paper  on  the  epigram  as  it  has  been 
written  here  in  the  United  States  was  the 
natural  result  of  the  attempt  to  collect  the 
best  specimens  of  American  familiar  verse 
(vers  de  societe),  the  lyrics  which  are  brief 
and  brilliant  and  buoyant.  And  the  paper 
on  the  quatrain,  as  this  has  been  handled 
by  American  lyrists,  was  the  outgrowth  of 
the  collection  of  American  epigrams  which 
revealed  the  need  of  making  clear  the  dis 
tinction  between  the  epigram  of  the  Greeks 
of  old  and  the  epigram  of  the  English- 
speaking  writers  of  to-day. 

To  most  careless  users  of  books  the 
anthologist  is  but  a  compiler,  like  the  lexi 
cographer,  "a  harmless  drudge;"  yet  if  any 
anthologists  were  ever  inclined  toward 
boastfulness,  they  would  have  little  diffi 
culty  in  proving  that  the  practitioners  of 
their  humble  craft  had  deserved  well  of  the 
republic  of  letters;  and  they  might  recall 
with  satisfaction  the  fact  that  Longfellow 
had  prepared  a  bulky  tome  of  selections 
from  the  Toets  and  Poetry  of  Europe'  and 
ii 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

that  he  had  also  supervised  the  long  series 
of  Toems  of  Places,'  a  lyrical  gazeteer. 
They  might  well  feel  pride  in  claiming  kin 
ship  in  labor  with  the  other  American 
songster  who  has  bestowed  upon  us  'A 
Victorian  Anthology'  and  'An  American 
Anthology,'  and  with  the  British  bard  who 
made  us  all  his  debtors  by  the  lyric  jewels 
he  heaped  up  in  the  'Golden  Treasury.' 
(1904.) 


12 


II 

A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 


T 


^1  HERE  seems  to  be  nothing  that  a 
small   mind   more   eagerly   de 
lights  in  than  the  detection  of 
the    small   resemblances    which 
are  likely  to  be  discoverable  when  the  works 
of  different  authors   are   rigorously  com 
pared;  and  there  are  assuredly  few  things 
that  a  large  mind  regards  with  a  more  lan 
guid  interest  than   the  foolish   and   futile 
accusations  of  plagiarism   now   and   again 
andied  about  in  the   public   prints.     The 
an  of  large  mind   is   both    tolerant   and 
eless.     He  knows  that  it  is  not  rare  for 
ame  thought  to   occur   independently 
1  almost  simultaneously  to  two  original 
ainkers — just  as  the  suggestion  of  natural 
lection  came  to    Darwin  and    Wallace 
Almost  at  the  same  time.    Moreover,  he  is 
13 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

well  aware  that  all  workers  have  a  right  to 
avail  themselves  of  whatsoever  has  been 
accomplished  by  their  predecessors,  so  long 
as  they  do  not  make  false  pretences  or  seek 
to  gain  credit  under  false  colors. 

If  proof  was  needed  that  Poe  was  not  a 
man  of  large  mind,  it  might  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  he  was  guilty  of  an  article  on  'Mr. 
Longfellow  and  Other  Plagiarists' ;  and  no 
one  was  surprised  to  learn  that  Poe  him 
self  could  be  a  plagiarist  upon  occasion,  and 
that  he  borrowed  for  his  'Marginalia' 
Sheridan's  joke  about  the  phoenix  and  Mr. 
Whitbread's  describing  it  as  a  poulterer 
would.  Of  course,  it  is  possible  that  Poe 
invented  this  witticism  for  himself, 
although  this  is  not  at  all  likely,  since  the 
American  lyrist  was  one  of  those  who  joked 
with  difficulty.  The  jest,  indeed,  is  very 
characteristic  of  the  author  of  the  'School 
for  Scandal' — and  very  unlike  the  other 
humorous  attempts  of  the  author  of  the 
'Raven.' 

Tennyson  once  wrote  to  a  critic  who  had 
14 


A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 

pointed  out  certain  parallelisms  in  the 
'Princess':  "Why  not?  Are  not  human 
eyes  all  over  the  world  looking  at  the  same 
objects,  and  must  there  not  consequently  be 
coincidences  of  thought  and  impressions 
and  expressions?  It  is  scarcely  possible  for 
any  one  to  say  or  write  anything  in  this  late 
time  of  the  world  to  which,  in  all  the  rest 
of  the  literature  of  the  world,  a  parallel 
could  not  somewhere  be  found."  Lowell 
declared  that  it  was  now  impossible  to  sink 
a  spade  in  the  soil  of  Parnassus  without  dis 
turbing  the  bones  of  some  dead  poet. 
Shelley  went  so  far  as  to  assert  that  "all 
knowledge  is  reminiscence;  the  doctrine  is 
far  more  ancient  than  the  times  of  Plato, 
and  as  old  as  the  venerable  allegory  that  the 
Muses  are  the  daughters  of  Memory;  not 
one  of  the  nine  was  ever  said  to  be  the  child 
of  Invention."  And  Mr.  Aldrich  in  his 
quatrain  on  'Originality'  has  asserted  that 

No  bird  has  ever  uttered  note 
That  was  not  in  some  first  bird's  throat; 
Since  Eden's  freshness  and  man's  fall 
No  rose  has  been  original. 

15 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Just  as  Poe  probably  borrowed  his  merry 
jest  from  Sheridan,  so  very  likely  the  re 
mark  of  one  of  the  characters  in  'Lady 
Windemere's  Fan' — "I  can  resist  every 
thing — except  temptation" — is  perhaps  a 
reminiscence  of  the  saying  of  the  medieval 
Franc-Archer  de  Bagnolet,  quoted  by 
Rabelais,  "I  am  not  afraid  of  anything — 
except  danger."  But  it  was  apparently 
quite  independently  but  almost  simultane 
ously  that  a  similar  thought  occurred  to 
a  Frenchman,  an  Englishman,  and  an 
American.  The  late  Thomas  B.  Reed, 
sometime  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  once  defined  a  statesman  as  "a 
successful  politician — who  is  dead."  Mr. 
Pinero,  having  in  mind  the  rather  boister 
ous  humor  of  the  'Rivals'  or  of  'She 
Stoops  to  Conquer,'  has  asserted  that 
"a  comedy  is  often  only  a  farce — by  a 
deceased  dramatist."  And  in  the  journal 
of  the  Goncourts  we  can  read  the  kindred 
remark  that  "genius  is  the  talent  of  a  dead 


man." 


A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 

When  M.  Rostand  brought  out  'L'Aig- 
lon'  its  likeness  in  theme  to  'Hamlet7  was 
promptly  pointed  out;  now  the  likeness  of 
'Hamlet'  to  the  'Oresteia'  is  a  commonplace 
of  scholarship;  but  there  is  no  resemblance 
whatsoever  between  the  French  play  and 
the  Greek  tragedy,  although  they  have  each 
of  them  a  certain  superficial  similarity  to 
the  English  drama.  Here  we  see  that  two 
dramas,  each  of  which  resembles  a  third, 
are  not  necessarily  like  each  other.  Up  to 
the  present  time  no  literary  detective  has 
accused  Mark  Twain  of  overt  plagiarism 
because  he  —  probably  unconsciously  — 
transplanted  certain  incidents  of  'Romeo 
and  Juliet'  to  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi, 
when  Huckleberry  Finn  was  setting  before 
us  boldly  and  simply  the  outcome  of  the 
long-standing  Shepherdson-Grangerford 
feud.  And,  as  yet,  Mr.  Kipling  has  not 
been  held  up  to  public  contempt  because  he 
utilized  in  his  story  of  the  'King's  Ankus' 
certain  devices  which  Chaucer  had  already 
employed  in  one  of  the  'Canterbury  Tales.' 
17 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Mr.  Kipling's  'Brushwood  Boy'  is  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  of  his  stories,  and  it  is 
one  of  the  most  original,  both  in  conception 
and  execution.  But  at  the  core  of  it  is  the 
possibility  of  two  persons  meeting  in  their 
dreams;  and  this  idea  was  already  to  be 
found  in  Mr.  Du  Maurier's  Teter  Ibbet- 
son.'  The  same  idea  has  since  been  devel 
oped  by  Mr.  Marion  Crawford  in  'Cecilia ;' 
and  also  by  Miss  Elizabeth  Jordan  in 
a  short  story  called  'Varick's  Lady  o' 
Dreams.'  Did  the  two  later  writers  get 
the  suggestion  of  it  from  Mr.  Kipling 
or  from  Mr.  Du  Maurier?  Did  Mr. 
Kipling  even  get  it  from  Mr.  Du  Mau 
rier?  Or  did  each  of  the  four  indepen 
dently  happen  upon  the  tempting  impos 
sibility?  It  was  Fitz  James  O'Brien 
who  wrote  'What  Was  It?' — a  thrilling 
tale  of  a  strange  creature,  which  could 
not  be  seen  but  could  be  felt;  and  Guy 
de  Maupassant,  in  'Le  Horla,'  introduces 
us  to  just  such  another  uncanny  and  impos 
sible  monster,  palpable  but  invisible.  Did 
18 


A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 

the  Frenchman  borrow  this  weird  impossi 
bility  from  the  Irish-American  who  had 
invented  it  thirty  years  earlier?  Or  did  he 
reinvent  it  for  himself?  No  wonder  is  it 
that  Mr.  Austin  Dobson  asks: 

Ah,  World  of  ours,  are  you  so  gray 

And  weary,  World,  of  spinning, 
That  you  repeat  the  tales  to-day 

You  told  at  the  beginning? 
For  lo!  the  same  old  myths  that  made 

The  early  stage-successes, 
Still  hold  the  boards  and  still  are  played 

"With  new  effects  and  dresses." 

Students  of  folk-lore  seem  to  be  agreed 
— if  indeed  they  are  in  accord  about  any 
thing  at  all — that  certain  kinds  of  stories 
are  likely  to  spring  up  spontaneously  when 
ever  and  wherever  the  conditions  are  favor 
able,  while  tales  of  a  different  type  are 
apparently  transmitted  swiftly  and  myste 
riously  from  one  country  and  one  language 
to  another  land  and  another  tongue.  It 
was  Whewell  who  asserted  that  all  the  Irish 
bulls  had  been  calves  in  Greece ;  and  it  was 
Professor  Tyrrel  who  neatly  explained  that 
19 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

the  Irish  bull  differed  from  the  bull  of  all 
other  islands  in  that  "it  was  always  preg 


nant." 


To  trace  these  similarities,  accidental  as 
they  are  mostly,  or  intentional  as  they  may 
be  sometimes,  is  gratifying  to  the  detective 
instinct,  and  it  is  an  amusement  harmless 
enough  if  we  do  not  exaggerate  the  impor 
tance  of  our  chance  finds,  and  if  we  recog 
nize  fully  the  right  of  every  man  to  profit 
by  all  that  has  been  accomplished  by  his 
predecessors.  Every  generation  has  the 
privilege  of  standing  on  the  shoulders  of 
the  generation  that  went  before;  but  it  has 
no  right  to  pick  the  pockets  of  the  first- 
comer.  In  an  earlier  paper  on  the  'Ethics 
of  Plagiarism'  the  present  writer  suggested 
that  the  man  who  finds  a  new  idea  deserves 
the  full  credit  of  fresh  invention;  that  the 
second  user  of  this  idea  may  possibly  be 
considered  a  plagiarist;  that  the  third  per 
son  to  utilize  it  is  only  lacking  in  originality, 
and  that  the  fourth  is  merely  drawing  from 
the  common  stock.  "And  when  the  fifth 
20 


A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 

man  takes  it,  that's  research!"  was  the  apt 
comment  of  a  philosophic  friend. 

The  preceding  paragraphs  may  perhaps 
appear  to  provide  a  portico  somewhat  too 
pretentious  for  the  modest  inquiry  which  is 
to  follow.  Their  purpose  was  but  to  make 
it  clear  that  this  modest  inquiry  was  not 
undertaken  with  any  intent  to  denounce  the 
crime  of  plagiarism.  Its  object  is  rather  to 
show  how  many  forms  a  pleasant  conceit 
may  assume  as  it  travels  down  the  centuries 
and  as  it  migrates  from  one  language  to 
another. 

Some  diligent  readers  of  modern  verse 
may  chance  to  be  acquainted  with  a  triolet 
of  the  late  W.  E.  Henley's,  which  turns 
upon  the  ease  with  which  a  triolet  can  be 
written : 

Easy  is  the  triolet, 

If  you  really  learn  to  make  it! 
Once  a  neat  refrain  you  get, 
Easy  is  the  triolet. 
As  you  see ! — I  pay  my  debt 

With    another   rhyme.      Deuce   take   it, 
Easy  is  the  triolet, 

If  you  really  learn  to  make  it ! 

21 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Probably  more  than  one  of  those  who 
may  have  glanced  at  this  pleasantly  phrased 
trifle  recalled  a  rondeau  of  Mr.  Austin 
Dobson's,  which  also  found  its  subject-mat 
ter  in  the  conditions  of  the  form  itself: 

You  bid  me  try,  Blue-Eyes,  to  write 
A  Rondeau.    What !— forthwith  ?— To-night  ? 
Reflect.     Some  skill  I  have,  'tis  true ; — 
But  thirteen  lines  ! — and  rhymed  on  two  ! 
"I  must,"  you  say.    Ah,  hapless  plight! 
Still,  there  are  five  lines, — ranged  aright. 
These  Gallic  bonds,  I  feared,  would  fright 
My  easy  muse.     They  did  till  you — 

You  bid  me  try ! 

That  makes  them  nine.    The  port's  in  sight ; — 
'Tis  all  because  your  eyes  are  bright ! 
Now  just  a  pair  to  end  with  "oo," — 
When  maids  command,  what  can't  we  do ! 
Behold!— the   Rondeau,   tasteful,   light, 
You  bid  me  try ! 

But  Mr.  Dobson,  as  is  his  wont,  was 
scrupulously  careful  to  put  forth  his  ron 
deau  in  English  as  a  free  imitation  of  a  ron 
deau  in  French  by  Voiture: 

Ma  foy;  c'est  fait  de  moy.    Car  Isabeau 
M'a  conjure  de  luy  faire  un  Rondeau. 

Cela  me  met  en  une  peine  extreme. 

Quoy,  treize  vers,  huit  en  eau,  cinq  en  erne! 
22 


A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 

Je  luy  ferois  aussi  tot  un  bateau. 
En  viola  cinq,  pourtant,  en  tin  monceau ; 
Faisons-en  huict,  en  invoquant  Brodeau, 
Et  puis  mettons,  par  quelque  stratageme, 

Ma  foy,  c'est  fait. 

Si  je  pouvois  encore  de  mon  cerveau 
Tirer  cinq  vers,  1'ouvrage  seroit  beau. 
Mais  cependant,  je  suis  dedans  1'onzieme, 
Et  si  je  croy  que  je  fais  le  douzieme, 
En  voila  treize  ajustes  au  niveau. 

Ma  foy,  c'est  fait ! 

And  this  raises  the  question  whether  in 
Voiture  we  have  found  the  first  versifier 
who  filled  a  fixed  form  by  an  airy  discussion 
of  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome  by  all  who 
adventure  upon  that  form;  and  here  the 
answer  is  easy.  Voiture  was  apparently 
only  the  first  lyrist  to  rhyme  a  rondeau  of 
this  sort;  for  he  had  as  a  predecessor 
Desmarets,  who  had  used  this  device  to 
help  him  in  the  composition  of  a  sonnet. 
And  it  is  asserted  that  the  Frenchman  had 
borrowed  the  conceit  from  an  Italian, 
Marini,  a  most  voluminous  sonneteer.  Un 
fortunately,  the  present  writer  has  not  been 
able  to  lay  hands  on  Marini's  sonnet,  or  on 
23 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

that  of  Desmarets,  despite  a  diligent  search. 
But  the  finding  of  the  French  lyric,  and  of 
the  Italian  that  suggested  it,  is  of  less  im 
portance,  since  there  is  no  doubt  that  both 
of  them  were  derived  from  a  Spanish 
original. 

In  his  'New  Art  of  Making  Plays'  Lope 
de  Vega  advised  the  dramaturgic  novice 
that  the  sonnet-form  was  v/ell-fitted  for 
soliloquies;  but,  although  this  particular 
sonnet  is  to  be  found  in  one  of  his  plays, 
'La  Nina  de  Plata,'  it  is  not  a  soliloquy, 
being  recited  by  the  gracioso  or  comedian, 
frankly  as  a  poetic  composition. 

SONETO  A  VIOLANTE. 

Un  soneto  me  manda  hacer  Violante : 

Qne  en  me  vida  me  he  visto  en  tanto  aprieto; 

Catorce  versos  dicen  que  es  soneto: 
Burla  burlando  van  los  tres  delante; 
Yo  pense  que  no  hallara  consonante, 

Y  estoy  a  la  mitad  de  otro  cuarteto; 

Mas  si  me  veo  en  el  primer  terceto ; 
No  hay  cosa  en  los  cuartetos  que  me  espante 
En  el  primer  terceto  voy  entrando, 

Y  aun  parece  que  entre  con  pie  derecho, 
24 


A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 

Pues  fin  con  este  verso  le  voy  dando ; 

Ya  estoy  en  el  segundo,  y  aun  sospecho 
Que  voy  los  trece  versos  acabando ; 

Contad  si  son  catorce :  ya  esta  hecho. 

In  his  study  of  the  life  and  works  of  the 
great  Spanish  playwright,  Lord  Holland 
quoted  an  English  adaptation  of  Lope's 
Spanish  original,  written  by  a  certain 
Thomas  Edwards,  the  author  of  a  carefully 
forgotten  discussion  of  the  'Canons  of 
Criticism,1  these  canons  being  weapons  of 
offence  primed  and  aimed  to  blow  War- 
burton  off  the  face  of  the  earth.  This  law 
yer-critic  refused  to  bind  himself  down  to 
the  strict  Guittonian  form  of  the  sonnet; 
and  his  wit  was  not  over  nimble;  but  he 
managed  to  get  his  fourteen  rhymes  in  pre 
sentable  shape : 

Capricious  Wray  a  sonnet  needs  must  have: 

I  ne'er  was  so  put  to't  before — a  sonnet? 

Why,  fourteen  verses  must  be  spent  upon  it. 
'Tis  good,    however,   I've  conquer'd  the  first  stave. 

Yet  I  shall  ne'er  find  rhvmes  enough  by  half, 
Said  I,  and  found  myself  in  the  midst  of  the  second : 
If  twice  four  verses  were  fairly  reckon'd 

I  should  turn  back  on  the  hardest  part,  and  laugh. 

25 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Thus  far  with  good  success  I  think  I've  scribbled, 
And  of  twice  seven  lines  have  clear  got  o'er  ten. 

Courage  !     Another'll  finish  the  first  triplet ; 
Thanks  to  the  muse,  my  work  begins  to  shorten, 
There's  thirteen  lines  got  through,  driblet  by  drib 
let, 

'Tis  done !   count  how  you  will,   I   warrant  there's 
fourteen. 

There  is  a  conscientious  rigidity  about 
this  sturdy  British  sonneteer  and  an 
eighteenth-century  stiffness  about  his  sacri 
fice  to  the  muse  which  contrast  sharply  with 
the  Gallic  vivacity  and  the  nineteenth-cen 
tury  expertness  to  be  found  in  a  sonnet  by 
the  late  Henri  Meilhac  (the  collaborator  of 
M.  Ludovic  Halevy,  in  the  composition  of 
the  'Belle  Helene,'  of  the  'Grande  Duch- 
esse  de  Gerolstein'  and  of  the  Terichole'). 
No  one  can  now  declare  with  certainty 
whether  Meilhac  borrowed  the  suggestion 
from  Desmarets  or  Voiture,  his  predeces 
sors  in  his  own  tongue,  or  whether  he  took 
it  over  from  the  Italian  or  from  the 
Spanish.  In  fact,  Meilhac  was  quite  ingen 
ious  enough  to  have  invented  the  device  for 
26 


A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 

his  own  use;  and  his  sonnet  has  the  bril 
liancy  and  the  buoyancy  which  we  expect 
to  find  in  the  best  vers  de  societe: 

UN   SONNET. 

Un   Sonnet,   dites-vous;   savez-vous   bien,   Madame, 
Qu'il  me  faudra  trouver  trois  rimes  a  sonnet? 

Madame,  heureusement,  rime  avec  ame  et  flamme, 
Et  le  premier  quatrain  me  semble  assez  complet. 

J'entame  le  second,  le  second  je  Tent,  me, 
Et  prends  en  1'entament  un  air  tout  guilleret, 

Car  ne  m'etant  encor  point  servi  du  mot  ame, 
Je  compte  m'en  servir,  et  m'en  sers,  en  effet. 

Vous  m'accorderez  bien,  maintenant,  j 'imagine, 
Qu'un  sonnet  sans  amour  ferait  fort  triste  mine, 
Qu'il  aurait  1'air  boiteux,  contrefait,  mal  tourne. 

II  nous  faut  de  1'amour,  il  nous  en  faut  quand  meme; 
J'ecris  done  en  tremblant;  je  vous  aime,  ou  je  t'aime, 
Et  voila,  pour  le  coup,  mon  sonnet  termine. 

It  was  Meilhac's  sonnet  which  the  late 
Henry  Cuyler  Bunner  paraphrased,  carry 
ing  over  into  English,  so  far  as  might  be 
possible,  not  only  the  fundamental  conceit 
but  also  the  most  of  the  minor  felicities  of 

27 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

the  French  lyrist.  Bunner's  'Sonnet  to 
Order*  was  avowedly  an  imitation;  and, 
when  it  was  first  published  in  an  American 
magazine,  it  was  accompanied  by  its  French 
original : 

A  sonnet  would  you  have?    Know  you,  my  pet, 

For  sonnets  fourteen  lines  are  necessary. 

Ah,  necessary  rhymes,  by  luck,  to  fairy — 
I'll  call  yoa  one,  and  the  first  quatrain  get. 
This  meets  half-way  the  second;  half-way  met, 

One  meets  an  obstacle  in  a  manner  airy. 

But  here,  though  it  is  not  your  name,  as  Mary 
I'll  set  you  down,  settling  the  second  set. 

Now,  you'll  ;.dmit,  a  sonnet  without  love, 
Without  the  savor  of  a  woman  in't, 

Were  profanation  of  poetic  art. 
Love,  above  all  things !     So  'tis  writ  above. 
Nor  there  alone.    Your  sonneteer,  I'd  hint, 
Gives  you  this  sonnet  here  with  all  his  heart. 

One  of  the  scholarly  contributors  to  Petit 
de  Julleville's  history  of  the  French  lan 
guage  and  literature  remarked  that  "noth 
ing  is  longer  than  a  sonnet — when  there  is 
nothing  in  it" ;  and  here  we  have  had  some 
half-dozen  sonnets  with  only  one  thought 


A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 

in  the  lot  of  them.  Yet  another  is  called 
'A  Difficult  Sonnet' ;  and  it  was  found  amid 
the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  a  scrap-book, 
credited  vaguely  to  the  University  Maga 
zine,  and  seemingly  clipped  out  some  twen 
ty  or  thirty  years  ago.  It  does  not  quite 
continue  the  tradition  that  has  here  been 
traced  down  through  the  modern  languages; 
indeed,  the  obvious  desire  of  the  poet  to 
moralize  points  to  an  English  lyrist  who 
believed  in  his  own  originality: 

With  an  idea  I  set  to  write  a  sonnet; 
The  subject  was  so  difficult  and  terse, 
I  could  not  quite  bring  right  the  tiresome  verse, 

Much  labor  though  I  spent,  and  pens,  upon  it : 

Still  I  plod  on,  and  line  by  line  I  con  it, 
Each  time  with  better  words  to  add,  or  worse, 
Till  it  comes  right;  and,  as  I  last  rehearse 

The  settled  stanza,  make  fair  copy  on  it. 

This  done,  I  take  my  blotted  rough  endeavor, 
Covering  some  sheets  with  every  kind  of  scrawl 

Of  my  first  failures,  some  of  them  quite  clever ; 
Into  a  little  pack  I  bring  them  all, 

Tear  up.     (Life  is  the  Poem — where's  the  taper? 

How  shall  I  burn  my  blotted  bits  of  paper? 

The  triolet,  the  rondeau,  and  the  sonnet 
have  each  in  turn  been  taken  by  lyrists  who 
29 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

wished  thus  to  exploit  their  own  playful 
ness  ;  and  the  ballade  is  the  only  other  fixed 
form  of  verse  likely  to  prove  equally  tempt 
ing.  But  a  conscientious  search  has  failed 
to  find  any  ballade  turning  on  the  difficulty 
of  making  a  ballade,  with  its  three  octaves, 
its  envoy,  its  refrain,  and  its  three  rhymes, 
repeated  and  interlaced.  In  'Cyrano  de 
Bergerac,'  M.  Rostand  makes  his  hero  im 
provise  a  ballade  while  he  is  fighting  a  duel 
— a  gorgeous  example  of  bravado  and  bra 
vura;  and  the  verses,  purporting  to  be  put 
together  in  the  very  moment  of  deadly  com 
bat,  abound  in  allusions  to  the  structure  of 
the  ballade  itself.  And  yet  the  basis  of  M. 
Rostand's  ballade,  with  its  refrain  "a  la  fin 
de  I' envoi,  je  touche,"  does  not  differ  much 
from  that  of  Lope  de  Vega,  although  the 
superstructure  of  the  later  lyric  achieves  a 
certain  originality.  There  are  at  least  two 
English  translations  of  M.  Rostand's  play; 
but  any  rendering  of  the  flashing  lines  of 
the  flamboyant  original  cannot  but  seem  a 
little  pale.  Who  was  it  first  asserted  that  a 
30 


A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 

translated  poem  was  like  a  boiled  straw 
berry? 

Of  all  the  Teutonic  tongues  our  own 
English  is  the  almost  only  one  which  has 
taken  part  in  these  international  borrow 
ings.  Students  of  German  poetry,  and  of 
Dutch,  have  been  unable  to  answer  the 
appeal  for  kindred  lyrics  from  these  lan 
guages. 

In  Danish — so  a  kind  correspondent  in 
Copenhagen  has  informed  me — there  is  a 
sonnet  "by  request"  from  the  pen  of 
Johan  Ludvig  Heiberg  (1791-1860).  He 
was  a  student  of  Spanish  literature,  and  he 
presents  his  own  poem  as  an  imitation  of  a 
Spanish  original: 

SONET    (efter  Mendoza) 

I  0nsker  en  Sonet.    Som  I  befaler ! 
Det  f^rste  med  det  andet  Vers  er  skrevet, 
Og  er  ei  Nummer  Tre  tilskamme  blevet, 
Med  fjerde  Vers  jeg  een  Qvartet  betaler. 

Jeg  kommer  til  det  femte.     Hjelp!     Jeg  daler ! 
Sanct  Jacob!    Marche  !    Det  sjette  fremad  drevet ! 
Hvis  jeg  det  syvende  kun  faaer  oplevet, 
Har  jeg  dog  Livet  frelst  af  disse  Qvaler! 

31 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Nu  er  jeg  faerdig  med  de  to  Qvartetter. 
Hvad  synes  jer!     Forstaaer  jeg  mig  at  vende? 
Men  Himlen  veed,  jeg  skjaelver  for  Tercetter! 

Og  hvis  jeg  kan  med  JEre  slutte  denne, 
Jeg  skriver  i  mit  Liv  ei  fleer  Sonetter, 
Da  denne  fjzfrste,  Gud  skee  Lov,  fik  Ende! 

Until  this  Danish  lyric  came  to  light, 
it  seemed  as  though  the  original  inventor 
of  the  pleasant  device  was  indisputably 
Lope  de  Vega  (1562-1635).  But  Hei- 
berg  gives  the  credit  to  the  author  of  the 
earliest  picaresque  romance  'Lazarillo  de 
Tormes',  Diego  Hurtando  de  Mendoza, 
the  brilliant  historian  (1503-1575),  who 
died  when  Lope  was  but  a  boy  of  thirteen. 
And  just  after  the  Danish  sonnet  had 
reached  me,  another  kind  correspondent 
sent  me  from  Idaho  this  English  version 
of  Mendoza's  original,  translated  by  Mat 
thew  Russell: — 

THE  SONNET. 
You  ask  a  sonnet,  lady,  and  behold! 

The  first  line  and  the  second  are  complete. 
If  equal  luck  I  in  the  third  should  meet, 
With  one  verse  more  the  first  quatrain  is  told. 
32 


A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 

St.  James  for  Spain !  the  fifth  verse  is  outrolled — 
Now  for  the  sixth.     'Twill  be  a  gallant  feat 
If  after  all  I  manage  to  retreat 
Safe  with  my  life  from  this  encounter  bold. 

Already,  rounded  well,  each  quatrain  stands. 
What  say  you,  lady?     Do  I  bravely  speed? 
Yet,  ah !  heaven  knows  the  tercets  me  affright ; 

And  if  this  sonnet  were  but  off  my  hands, 
Another  I  should  ne'er  attempt,  indeed. 
But  now,  thank  God,  my  sonnet's  finished  quite. 

Apparently  the  Northern  tongues  have 
not  taken  so  kindly  to  the  fixed  forms  as 
the  Southern  languages  did.  And  yet  no 
example  of  a  lyric  containing  this  conceit 
has  been  forthcoming  from  Portuguese  or 
from  Provengal.  This  last  deficiency  is 
the  more  remarkable,  since  the  origin  of  all 
the  fixed  forms  has  been  traced  to  that 
home  of  minstrelsy.  The  sonnet  was  in 
vented  by  a  Provengal  lyrist,  just  as  the 
rondeau  was,  and  the  ballade  also. 

The  sonnet  established  itself  first,  and 
gained  the  widest  acceptance ;  and  it  is  only 
of  late  that  the  rondeau  and  the  ballade 
have  achieved  a  certain  popularity,  far 

33 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

inferior  to  that  of  the  sonnet.  Indeed,  of 
all  the  fixed  forms  the  sonnet  is  at  once 
the  best  known  and  the  most  noble.  It 
has  been  used  to  convey  the  loftiest  of 
messages;  it  has  done  this  successfully  with 
out  calling  undue  attention  to  the  necessary 
artifice  of  its  construction.  The  rondeau, 
on  the  other  hand,  and  the  ballade  also, 
have  seemed  best  fitted  for  lighter  themes 
of  minor  importance.  They  carry  more 
appropriately  the  ingenious  prettiness  of 
vers  de  societe;  whereas  the  sonnet  has 
proved  itself  to  be  worthy  of  the  most 
elevated  themes. 

In  seeking  to  discover  what  poet  it  was 
who  first  devised  a  lyric  in  a  fixed  form, 
turning  on  the  arbitrary  difficulty  of  the 
form  itself,  there  is  no  need  to  go  further 
back  than  the  Renascence,  since  the  fixed 
form  was  a  product  of  the  Renascence, 
impossible  until  after  rhyme  had  been 
elaborated  in  the  Middle  Ages.  In  the 
lyrics  of  Rome  and  Greece,  with  all  their 
exquisite  modulations  of  metre,  there  was 

34 


A  THEME,  WITH  VARIATIONS 

no  rhyme ;  and  therefore  no  fixed  form  was 
possible,  built  upon  an  artful  adjustment 
of  repeated  and  contrasted  rhymes. 

In  Hebrew  versification,  it  ought  to  be 
noted  here,  the  acrostic  was  held  in  high 
esteem.  Perchance  there  exists  in  Hebrew 
an  acrostic,  setting  forth  the  difficulty  to 
be  vanquished  by  every  bard  who  seeks 
to  write  an  acrostic. 
(1903-) 

P.  S. — There  is  a  motto  popular  in  the 
minor  marts  of  trade:  "If  you  don't  see 
what  you  want,  ask  for  it."  And  the 
original  publication  of  this  inquiry 
promptly  moved  an  anonymous  British 
bard  to  provide  the  needed  ballade  based 
on  the  difficulty  of  its  own  structure.  He 
called  it  a  'Ballade  in  the  Making.' 

Do  you  desire  me,  friend,  to  write 

The  Ballade  of  Clement  Marot, 
And  incidentally  indite 

The  lines  on  which  it  ought  to  go? 

Then,  firstly,  I  would  have  you  know, 
One  must  be  gifted  with  resource, 

For,  like  the  Rondel  and  Rondeau, 
The  Ballade  is  a  tour  de  force. 

35 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Three  rhymes  you  need;  but  choose  aright, 

For  one  (like  this  of  mine  in  "O") 
Comes  fourteen  times;  then  find  a  bright 

Refrain,  and  keep  it  mot  pour  mot 

To  fall  spontaneously  below 
Each  of  three  septets ;  this,  of  course, 

Needs  ingenuity,  for  oh ! 
The  Ballade  is  a  tour  de  force. 

Think  not  to  find  the  task  as  light 

As  Rostand  tells  did  Cyrano, 
Composing  octaves  through  a  fight 

And  envoy  as  he  pinked  his  foe. 

Remember,  too,  your  verse  should  flow 
Smooth  as  a  river  from  its  source — 

So  smooth,  in  fact,  as  not  to  show 
^he  Ballade  is  a  tour  de  force. 

L'ENVOI. 
Envoy,  addressed  to  so-and-so, 

Should  all  that  goes  before  indorse, 
As  thus : — O  reader  mine,  I  trow 

The  Ballade  is  a  tour  de  force. 


Ill 

UNWRITTEN  BOOKS 


f"^  O  most  of  the  admirers  of  Dickens 
I  the  'Mystery  of  Edwin  Drood' 
I*  remains  still  a  mystery,  since  the 
author  died  suddenly  and  before 
he  had  himself  disclosed  his  own  answer 
to  his  serial  conundrum.  We  may  give 
as  many  guesses  as  we  choose,  we  cannot 
be  absolutely  certain  that  our  solution  of 
the  problem  is  the  real  one.  Thackeray 
was  far  above  any  mystery-mongering  of 
this  sort,  and  he  scorned  to  entrap  his 
readers  into  puzzling  over  a  mere  enigma 
of  plot;  but  he  had  acquired  from  Dickens 
the  inartistic  habit  of  beginning  the  inter 
mittent  publication  of  a  novel  before  he 
had  composed  the  final  chapters,  and 
'Denis  Duval'  remains  to  us  an  interrupted 
beginning  of  what  might  have  been  a 

37 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

worthy  companion  of  'Henry  Esmond.' 
More  than  one  attempt  was  made  to  com 
plete  Dickens's  broken  narrative,  but  no 
rash  writer  was  hardy  enough  to  venture 
on  a  continuation  of  Thackeray's  novel. 
When  Wilkie  Collins  left  a  serial  unfin 
ished,  Sir  Walter  Besant  kindly  supplied 
a  conclusion;  and  Mr.  Quiller-Couch  did 
a  like  friendly  service  for  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson. 

Here  in  America  Hawthorne  tried  three 
times  to  get  his  strange  story  of  the  bloody 
footstep  into  a  shape  satisfactory  to  his 
fastidious  sense  of  form,  and  he  allowed 
'The  Dolliver  Romance'  to  begin  to  appear 
in  a  magazine  before  he  had  completed 
the  manuscript.  The  sudden  death  of 
Dickens  and  of  Thackeray  was  his  also, 
and  his  instalment  of  life  in  this  world 
was  sharply  cut  off — to  be  continued  in 
our  next.  As  in  Thackeray's  case,  so  in 
Hawthorne's,  the  impossibility  of  com 
pleting  what  the  master  had  begun  was  so 
plain  that  even  the  most  foolishly  con- 
38 


UNWRITTEN  BOOKS 

ceited  have  restrained  their  pens  from  the 
task.  As  Hawthorne's  classmate,  Long 
fellow,  beautifully  phrased  it: 

There,  in  seclusion  and  remote  from  men, 

The  wizard  hand  lies  cold, 
Which  at  its  topmost  speed  let  fall  the  pen, 

And  left  the  tale  half-told. 

Ah !  who  shall  lift  that  wand  of  magic  power, 

And  the  lost  clue  regain? 
The  unfinished  window  in  Aladdin's  tower 

Unfinished  must  remain. 

Hawthorne,  however,  and  Thackeray 
had  at  least  begun  these  books;  the  'Dol- 
liver  Romance'  and  'Denis  Duval'  remain 
unfinished,  but  they  were  not  absolutely 
unwritten.  There  are  in  the  records  of 
literature  other  books  by  other  authors 
actually  announced  as  these  were,  but 
never  even  begun.  Some  of  these  un 
written  books  may  have  been  thought  out, 
composed,  ready  to  be  set  down  in  black 
and  white  with  pen  and  ink,  complete  in 
the  author's  head,  and  lacking  the  final  and 
almost  mechanical  registration.  Others 
39 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

seem  to  have  been  mere  projects,  little 
more  than  vague  dreams,  for  a  possible 
future  realisation.  At  one  stage  of  its 
existence  every  book  is  but  a  castle  in  the 
air;  and,  the  persevering  author  acts  on 
Thoreau's  assertion,  that  the  air  is  the 
proper  place  for  a  castle,  and  that  what 
needs  to  be  done  is  only  to  build  a  solid 
foundation  under  it. 

Moliere  is  said  by  most  of  his  biog 
raphers  to  have  made  a  translation  from 
Lucretius;  and  if  this  ever  really  existed 
it  is  now  lost.  But  another  of  Moliere's 
works  never  did  exist — the  comedy  of 
'L'Homme  de  Cour' — which  he  used  to 
talk  about  as  certain  to  be  his  final  mas 
terpiece,  but  of  which  nothing  is  now 
known.  So  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan 
made  ready  to  write  a  successor  to  the 
'Rivals'  and  the  'School  for  Scandal,'  on 
the  theme  of  'Affectation,'  but  this  admira 
ble  subject  did  not  tempt  him  to  the  actual 
labor  of  composition.  He  made  a  few 
notes  for  the  proposed  play,  and  pursued 
40 


UNWRITTEN  BOOKS 

it  no  further.  Perhaps  he  was  too  ab 
sorbed  in  the  pleasures  of  society  or  in  the 
delights  of  politics;  perhaps  he  was  satis 
fied  with  the  comedies  he  had  already  writ 
ten  and  willing  to  rest  his  title  to  remem 
brance  upon  these.  Michael  Kelly  tells 
us  how  he  once  said  to  Sheridan  that  the 
manager  of  Drury  Lane  would  never  write 
another  comedy,  since  he  was  afraid — 
afraid  of  the  author  of  the  'School  for 
Scandal/  And  like  Moliere  and  like  Sheri 
dan,  Cervantes  had  projected  a  final  play, 
destined  to  eclipse  all  its  predecessors — 
'Engano  a  los  Ojos' — and  yet  not  destined 
to  see  the  light  of  day,  since  the  author 
of  'Don  Quixote'  died  before  it  was  ready, 
if  indeed  it  was  ever  begun. 

For  years  the  paper  covers  of  every 
new  book  that  Victor  Hugo  issued  con 
tinued  to  announce  as  soon  to  be  pub 
lished  a  romance  entitled  'La  Quinquen- 
grogne.'  Many  posthumous  volumes  of 
the  French  poet's  writing  in  prose  and 
verse  have  been  sent  forth  by  his  literary 
41 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

executors,  but  of  this  oddly  entitled  fic 
tion  nothing  has  been  heard.  Theophile 
Gautier's  'Capitaine  Fracasse'  was  pro 
claimed  as  almost  ready  for  print  for 
many  long  years  before  the  first  word  of 
it  was  actually  written ;  but  at  last  Gautier 
did  write  up  to  his  title.  Which  one 
of  his  Romanticist  companions  in  arms 
was  it  who  achieved  instant  fame  on  his 
declaration  of  intention  to  astound  the 
world  sooner  or  later  with  a  treatise,  'Sur 
rincommodite  des  Commodes?' — a  treat 
ise  which,  like  a  bill  in  Congress,  has  been 
read  by  title  only. 

In  1862,  Alphonse  Daudet  in  like  man 
ner  announced  as  "in  press"  a  volume  of 
stories,  which  was  to  be  called  'Le  Pen- 
tameron,'  and  which  remained  unpublished 
and  probably  unwritten  when  he  died  in 
1897.  A  novel  of  Daudet's — Trousseaux 
et  Layettes' — about  which  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  conversing  with  his  intimates  in 
the  later  years  of  his  life,  seems  to  have 
been  begun,  but  apparently  it  was  not  very 
42 


UNWRITTEN  BOOKS 

far  advanced  when  death  overtook  him. 
And  the  younger  Dumas  has  left  on  record 
more  than  one  reference  to  a  comedy  to 
be  called  'La  Route  de  Thebes',  planned 
before  'Francillon,'  but  never  brought  to 
the  point  of  perfection  during  the  author's 
lifetime. 

In  the  original  prospectus  of  M.  Jules 
Jusserand's  admirable  series  of  critical 
biographies,  'Les  Grands  Ecrivains  Fran- 
gais,'  it  was  asserted  that  M.  Anatole 
France  would  contribute  the  volume  on 
Racine  and  M.  Jules  Lemaitre  that  on 
Alfred  de  Musset.  But  when  the  time 
came  to  publish  the  book  on  Racine  its 
author  was  found  to  be  not  M.  France, 
but  M.  Gustave  Larroumet;  and  the  vol 
ume  on  Musset  was  prepared,  not  by  M. 
Lemaitre,  but  by  Mme.  Arvede  Barine. 
Boileau  was  to  have  been  undertaken  by 
M.  Ferdinand  Brunetiere,  and  Rousseau 
by  the  late  Victor  Cherbuliez;  but  M. 
Gustave  Lanson  was  the  author  of  the 
account  of  the  great  classic  critic,  and  M. 

43 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Chuquet  was  responsible  for  the  biogra 
phy  of  the  progenitor  of  French  Roman 
ticism.  It  is  more  than  ten  years  since  the 
prospectus  of  this  series  was  prepared,  and 
M.  Brunetiere  has  not  yet  given  us  his 
promised  study  of  Voltaire,  nor  has  M. 
Paul  Bourget  vouchsafed  us  his  analysis  of 
Balzac. 

Taine  was  to  have  written  the  life  of 
Sainte-Beuve  for  this  series,  but  he  died 
before  he  had  accomplished  the  pleasant 
and  appropriate  task.  In  like  manner 
Lowell  at  the  time  of  his  death  had  made 
little  progress  with  the  volume  on  Haw 
thorne  which  he  had  agreed  to  prepare 
for  the  corresponding  series  in  this  coun 
try,  Mr.  Warner's  'American  Men  of 
Letters';  and  to  an  American  in  London, 
with  whom  he  was  talking  over  his  theme, 
Lowell  expressed  his  gentle  dissatisfaction 
with  the  volume  on  Hawthorne  contrib 
uted  to  the  'English  Men  of  Letters'  by 
Mr.  Henry  James.  Lowell  remarked  that 
Hawthorne  was  of  New  England,  all 
44 


UNWRITTEN    BOOKS 

compact,  and  could  be  treated  adequately 
only  by  a  New  Englander,  whereas  Mr. 
James,  in  so  far  as  he  was  an  American  at 
all,  was  a  New  Yorker. 

The  'American  Men  of  Letters'  series 
has  had  almost  as  many  substitutions  as 
the  'Grands  Ecrivains  Frangais.'  Mr. 
Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  was  to  have  writ 
ten  the  volume  on  N.  P.  Willis,  and  Pro 
fessor  Beers  did  write  it.  Mr.  George 
W.  Cable  undertook  to  prepare  an  account 
of  William  Gilmore  Simms,  and  Professor 
Trent  did  prepare  it.  Mr.  Howells  was 
expected  to  write  the  life  of  Longfellow, 
and  Colonel  Higginson  took  it  over.  And 
in  the  original  prospectus  of  the  corre 
sponding  British  series,  the  earliest  of  the 
three,  Mr.  John  Morley's  'English  Men  of 
Letters,'  the  editor  reserved  to  himself  two 
authors,  Gray  and  Burke.  The  study  of 
Burke  he  has  published,  but  that  of  Gray 
he  turned  over  to  Mr.  Gosse.  And  the 
volume  on  Berkeley  which  the  late  Profes 
sor  Huxley  was  to  prepare  for  Mr.  Mor- 
45 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

ley's  series  never  got  itself  written,  although 
that  on  Hume  did. 

It  was  more  or  less  in  rivalry  with  Mr. 
Morley's  series  that  Mr.  Andrew  Lang 
began  a  collection  of  'English  Worthies/ 
which  the  editor  himself  was  to  provide 
with  a  biography  of  Izaak  Walton — a 
project  abandoned  apparently  when  the 
series  itself  was  given  up.  And  it  was 
for  this  set  of  'English  Worthies'  that 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  made  ready  to 
celebrate  the  deeds  of  Wellington,  as  un 
likely  a  subject  as  could  well  be  chosen 
by  him — although  his  master,  Scott,  had 
made  money  by  a  huge  book  about  Na 
poleon.  When  one  of  Stevenson's  inti 
mates — one  of  his  collaborators,  indeed 
— was  asked  why  the  victor  of  Waterloo 
had  been  selected  by  the  author  of  the 
'Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,' 
the  laughing  answer  was,  "Oh,  Louis 
thinks  he  has  an  eye  for  strategy  and 
tactics." 

To  the  excellent  series  of  'History  and 
46 


UNWRITTEN   BOOKS 

Literature  Primers,7  which  was  edited  by 
J.  R.  Green,  the  historian,  and  which  con 
tains  the  extraordinarily  successful  primer 
of  English  literature  by  Mr.  Stopford 
Brooke  and  the  equally  illuminative  primer 
of  Greek  literature  by  Professor  Jebb, 
Dean  Farrar  was  to  contribute  a  primer 
of  Latin  literature.  And  to  a  kindred 
series  of  little  books  on  'Classical  Writers/ 
Professor  James  Bryce  had  promised  a 
study  of  Herodotus.  Both  of  these  books, 
now  overdue  for  more  than  half  a  score 
of  years,  remain  unwritten. 

And  what  has  become  of  the  'Book  of 
the  Forty-five  Mornings' — most  alluring 
title — which  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling  dangled 
before  our  eyes  almost  as  long  ago? 
Everything  comes  to  him  who  waits,  but 
have  we  not  waited  long  enough  for  this? 

Perhaps  one  or  another  of  these  un 
written  books  by  men  of  letters  still  alive 
may  get  themselves  into  print  all  in  good 
time ;  and,  perhaps,  none  of  them  will  ever 
see  the  light.  And  it  may  be  that  their 

47 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

authors  are  wise  in  their  own  generation, 
in  so  far  as  they  may  prefer  the  contem 
plation  of  a  possibility  never  to  be  at 
tempted  to  any  effort  to  possess  a  reality 
that  might  be  a  bitter  disappointment. 
No  unwritten  book  can  ever  be  a  reproach 
to  an  author  or  a  burden  to  his  friends, 
nor  can  it  gratify  his  enemies.  No  un 
written  poem  can  be  picked  to  pieces  by 
criticasters.  No  unwritten  play  can  be 
damned  by  faint  praise.  As  Scribe,  that 
wiliest  of  playwrights,  once  declared, 
"What  is  cut  out  is  never  hissed."  What 
is  unwritten  cannot  be  abused  offensively, 
nor  can  it  be  eulogized  effusively — which 
to  a  sincere  author  may  be  even  more  dis 
tasteful. 

No  author  was  ever  more  frankly  sin 
cere  than  Whittier;  and  it  was  Whittier 
who  wrote : 

Let  the  thick  curtain  fall; 
I  better  know  than  all 
How  little  I  have  gained, 
How  vast  the  unattained. 

48 


UNWRITTEN   BOOKS 

Sweeter  than  any  sung 

My  songs  that  found  no  tongue, 

Nobler  than  any  fact 

My  wish  that  failed  the  act. 

Others  shall  sing  the  song, 
Others  shall  right  the  wrong — 
Finish  what  I  begin — 
And  all  I  fail  of,  win. 
(i899). 


49 


IV 
SEED-CORN    FOR   STORIES 

IN  the  characteristic  little  book  of 
little  essays  which  Mr.  Aldrich  has 
chosen  to  call  'Ponkapog  Papers' 
there  are  half  a  hundred  pages  of 
'Asides' — fragmentary  and  unrelated  par 
agraphs,  compounded  of  cleverness  and 
shrewdness  and  wit.  In  reading  these 
pages  we  feel  almost  as  though  the  author 
had  permitted  us  to  peep  into  his  note 
book;  and  we  find  ourselves  wondering 
whether  our  manners  ought  not  to  bid  us 
close  the  volume.  These  'Asides'  seem 
to  be  far  less  labored  and  less  self-conscious 
than  the  'Marginalia,'  most  of  which  Poe 
chipped  out  of  the  longer  essays  and  re 
views  that  he  did  not  care  to  reprint  in 
full. 

Mr.  Aldrich  tells  us  that  in  the  blotted 
50 


SEED-CORN   FOR  STORIES 

memorandum-book  from  which  he  has 
chosen  these  chance  paragraphs,  there  are 
a  score  or  two  of  suggestions  for  essays 
and  for  sketches  and  for  poems  which  he 
has  not  written  and  which  he  never  will 
write.  "The  instant  I  jot  down  an  idea," 
he  informs  us,  uthe  desire  to  utilize  it 
leaves  me,  and  I  turn  away  to  do  something 
unpremeditated.  The  shabby  volume  has 
become  a  sort  of  Potter's  Field  where  I 
bury  rny  intentions,  good  and  bad,  without 
any  belief  in  their  final  resurrection."  As 
if  in  proof  of  this  confession,  Mr.  Aldrich 
has  included  among  these  'Asides'  two  or 
three  suggestions,  which  he  does  not  intend 
to  utilize  himself  and  which  he  generously 
presents  to  the  public.  They  are  seed-corn 
for  stories  which  he  has  not  cared  to  plant 
and  tend  and  harvest  himself. 

Here  is  one  of  these  undeveloped  imagin 
ings: 

"In  his  memoirs,  Krapotkin  states  the 
singular  fact  that  the  natives  of  the  Ma 
layan  Archipelago  have  an  idea  that  some- 
Si 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

thing  is  extracted  from  them  when  their 
likenesses  are  taken  by  photography.  Here 
is  the  motive  for  a  fantastic  short-story,  in 
which  the  hero — an  author  in  vogue  or  a 
popular  actor — might  be  depicted  as  hav 
ing  all  his  good  qualities  gradually  photo 
graphed  out  of  him.  This  could  well  be 
the  result  of  a  too  prolonged  indulgence  in 
the  effort  to  'look  natural.'  First  the  man 
loses  his  charming  simplicity;  then  he  be 
gins  to  pose  in  intellectual  attitudes,  with 
finger  on  brow ;  then  he  becomes  morbidly 
self-conscious,  and  finally  ends  in  an  asylum 
for  incurable  egotists." 

And  here  is  a  second  as  appallingly 
imaginative  as  the  first  was  humorously 
fanciful:  "Imagine  all  human  beings  swept 
off  the  face  of  the  earth,  excepting  one 
man.  Imagine  this  man  in  some  vast  city, 
New  York  or  London.  Imagine  him  on 
the  third  or  fourth  day  of  his  solitude  sit 
ting  in  a  house  and  hearing  a  ring  at  the 
door-bell !" 

As  we  read  this  we  cannot  but  wonder 
52 


SEED-CORN   FOR  STORIES 

whether  the  bare  idea  thus  boldly  thrown 
out  is  not  more  powerful  than  any  more 
amply  wrought  tale  could  be,  even  if  it 
was  to  be  told  with  all  Mr.  Aldrich's  own 
delicate  ingenuity.  And  then  we  wonder 
whether  the  author  refrained  from  writing 
this  story  himself  for  the  reason  he  has 
given  us, — that  he  tired  of  his  own  sug 
gestions  so  soon  as  he  got  them  down  in 
black  and  white — or  whether  in  this  case 
his  generosity  to  the  public  is  not  due  to 
the  intuitive  feeling  of  an  accomplished 
craftsman  that  the  naked  notion,  stark  and 
unadorned,  is  more  striking  and  more  pow 
erful  in  its  simplicity  than  it  would  be  if 
it  was  elaborated  according  to  all  the  pre 
cepts  of  the  art  of  fiction. 

In  Poe's  'Marginalia'  there  is  one  pas 
sage  in  some  measure  akin  to  Mr.  Aldrich's 
second    suggestion.      "I    have    sometimes 
amused  myself,"   the   poet   declared,    "by 
endeavoring  to  fancy  what  would  be  the 
fate    of    an    individual    gifted,    or    rather 
accursed,  with  an  intellect  very  far  supe- 
53 
fr 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

rior  to  that  of  his  race.  Of  course  he 
would  be  conscious  of  his  superiority;  nor 
could  he  (if  otherwise  constituted  as  man 
is)  help  manifesting  his  consciousness. 
Thus  he  would  make  enemies  at  all  points. 
And — since  his  opinions  and  speculations 
would  widely  differ  from  those  of  all  man 
kind — that  he  would  be  considered  as  a 
madman,  is  evident.  How  horribly  pain 
ful  such  a  condition !  Hell  could  invent 
no  greater  torture  than  that  of  being 
charged  with  abnormal  weakness  on  ac 
count  of  being  abnormally  strong." 

Here  again  the  suggestion  itself  in  its 
bare  simplicity  is  more  effective  than  any 
completed  story.  But  there  is  another  of 
Poe's  notions  which  seems  not  so  difficult 
of  treatment  and  which  he  might  very 
readily  have  carried  out.  He  called  it 
4  A  Suggestion  for  a  Magazine  Article.' 

"Here  is  a  good  idea  for  a  magazine 

paper;    let    somebody    'work    it    up/      A 

flippant  pretender  to  universal  acquirement 

— a  would-be  Crichton — engrosses,  for  an 

54 


SEED-CORN   FOR  STORIES 

hour  or  two,  perhaps,  the  attention  of  a 
large  company,  most  of  whom  are  pro 
foundly  impressed  by  his  knowledge.  He 
is  very  witty,  in  especial,  at  the  expense 
of  a  modest  young  gentleman,  who  ven 
tures  to  make  no  reply,  and  who,  finally, 
leaves  the  room  as  if  overwhelmed  with 
confusion;  the  Crichton  greeting  his  exit 
with  a  laugh.  Presently  he  returns,  fol 
lowed  by  a  footman  carrying  an  armful 
of  books.  These  are  deposited  on  the 
table.  The  young  gentleman  now,  refer 
ring  to  some  pencilled  notes  which  he  had 
been  secretly  taking  during  the  Crichton's 
display  of  erudition,  pins  the  latter  to  his 
statements,  each  by  each,  and  refutes  them 
all  in  turn,  by  reference  to  the  very  authori 
ties  cited  by  the  egotist  himself,  whose 
ignorance  at  all  points  is  thus  made  appar- 


ent." 


With  characteristic   affectation  Poe  in 
sisted  that  his  'Marginalia'  had  been  writ 
ten  in  his  books,  on  the  margins  themselves 
when  these  happened  to  be  ample  enough, 
55 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

and  on  a  slip  of  paper  deposited  between 
the  leaves  when  what  he  had  to  note  was 
"too  much  to  be  included  within  the  nar 
row  limits  of  a  margin."  He  admitted 
this  to  be  a  whim,  and  declared  that  it  might 
"be  not  only  a  very  hackneyed,  but  a  very 
idle  practice,"  but  he  asserted  that  he  per 
sisted  in  it  because  it  afforded  him  pleasure. 
He  maintained  that  "the  purely  marginal 
jottings,  done  with  no  eye  to  the  Memo 
randum  Book,  have  a  distinct  complexion, 
and  not  only  not  a  distinct  purpose,  but 
none  at  all;  this  it  is  which  imparts  to  them 
a  value."  Unfortunately  for  Poe's  claim 
that  in  these  fragmentary  notes  he  was 
talking  "freshly,  boldly,  originally,"  his 
editors  have  been  able  to  trace  the  most 
of  his  paragraphs  to  articles  of  his  which 
he  did  not  care  to  reprint  in  full.  As  Mr. 
Stedman  explains,  "they  afforded  the  maga- 
zinist  an  easy  way  of  making  copy,"  since 
"they  were  largely  made  up  of  passages 
lifted  from  earlier  essays  and  reviews." 
And  Mr,  Stedman  also  points  out  how 
56 


SEED-CORN  FOR  STORIES 

Poe's  pretence  that  his  'Marginalia'  are 
what  their  prelude  and  title  imply,  uis 
made  transparent  by  their  formal,  pre 
meditated  style,  so  different  from  that  of 
Hawthorne's  'Note-Books,'  or  that  of 
Thoreau's  posthumous  apothegms  and 
reflections." 

It  is  the  charm  of  Hawthorne's  'Note- 
Books'  that  they  really  were  written  for 
himself  alone  and  with  no  thought  of  pub 
lication.  Although  he  went  to  them  for 
material  for  the  book  about  his  English 
sojourn,  'Our  Old  Home,'  and  although 
he  picked  out  of  them  many  an  idea  which 
he  worked  up  in  a  tale  or  in  a  romance, 
he  kept  them  for  his  own  eye  only.  As 
his  widow  asserted  when  she  made  a  selec 
tion  from  these  journals  for  publication 
several  years  after  his  death,  he  was  "enter 
taining,  and  not  asserting,  opinions  and 
ideas."  She  insisted  that  her  husband  was 
questioning,  doubting  and  reflecting  with 
his  pen,  and,  as  it  were,  instructing  him 
self, — so  that  his  note-books  should  be 
57 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

read  "not  as  definitive  conclusions  of  his 
mind,  but  merely  as  passing  impressions 
often." 

The  later  journals  kept  in  Great  Britain, 
in  France  and  in  Italy  are  entertaining 
because  they  give  us  the  impressions  of 
Hawthorne  himself,  recorded  at  the  mo 
ment  of  reception  often;  but  they  are  far 
less  interesting  and  less  valuable  than  the 
note-books  he  filled  in  his  youth  before  he 
had  ever  left  his  native  land.  Here  we 
get  very  close  to  him;  we  see  his  mind 
at  work;  we  trace  the  first  hint  of  a  story 
as  he  jots  it  down  and  we  can  see  it  grow 
ing  as  it  takes  root  in  his  mind.  For  ex 
ample,  the  idea  of  the  'Virtuoso's  Collec 
tion'  came  to  him  again  and  again  in 
slightly  different  forms;  and  as  we  turn 
the  pages  of  his  note-books  we  can  dis 
cover  when  it  was  that  he  happened  upon 
one  and  another  of  the  marvellous  curiosi 
ties  which  enriched  the  strange  gathering. 
In  like  manner  the  first  suggestion  of  that 
characteristic  tale,  the  'Birthmark,'  is  set 
58 


SEED-CORN   FOR  STORIES 

down  in  three  lines,  which  tell  the  whole 
story:  UA  person  to  be  in  possession  of 
something  as  perfect  as  mortal  man  has 
a  right  to  demand;  he  tries  to  make  it 
better,  and  ruins  it  entirely." 

Sometimes  the  suggestion  is  merely  fan 
ciful,  and  too  diaphanous  to  withstand 
elaboration:  "A  person  to  catch  fire-flies, 
and  try  to  kindle  his  household  fire  with 
them.  It  would  be  symbolical  of  some 
thing."  Sometimes  the  suggestion  is  bold 
enough  and  alluring,  but  not  to  be  accom 
plished  without  a  complicated  machinery, 
which  would  detract  from  its  directness: 
"The  situation  of  a  man  in  the  midst  of 
a  crowd,  yet  as  completely  in  the  power 
of  another,  life  and  all,  as  they  two  were 
in  the  deepest  solitude."  Sometimes  the 
suggestion  is  so  characteristic,  so  indi 
vidual,  so  Hawthornesque,  that  we  find 
ourselves  wondering  how  it  was  that  it 
did  not  tempt  Hawthorne  himself  to  its 
ampler  unfolding:  "A  person  to  be  writing 
a  tale,  and  to  find  that  it  shapes  itself 
59 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

against  his  intentions;  that  the  characters 
act  otherwise  than  he  thought;  that  unfore 
seen  events  occur;  and  a  catastrophe  comes 
which  he  strives  in  vain  to  avert.  It  might 
shadow  forth  his  own  fate — he  having 
made  himself  one  of  the  personages."  Or 
this:  "Follow  out  the  fantasy  of  a  man 
taking  his  life  by  instalments,  instead  of 
at  one  payment, — say  ten  years  of  life 
alternately  with  ten  years  of  suspended 
animation."  Of  course  this  last  idea  has 
a  certain  kinship  with  'Rip  van  Winkle' 
and  with  the  'Man  with  the  Broken  Ear;' 
but  it  differs  in  that  Hawthorne  supposes 
his  hero  to  act  voluntarily  and  more  than 
once,  whereas  there  was  but  a  single  and 
involuntary  suspension  of  animation  in 
Irving's  tale  and  in  About's. 

Another  of  Hawthorne's  suggestions  he 
might  have  treated  himself,  no  doubt,  with 
the  delicate  aroma  of  pure  romance;  but 
the  theme  would  also  lend  itself  to  a  wholly 
different  treatment,  by  a  novelist  enamored 
of  real  things  and  of  the  externals  of  life : 
60 


SEED-CORN  FOR  STORIES 

"A  story,  the  hero  of  which  is  to  be  repre 
sented  as  naturally  capable  of  deep  and 
strong  passion,  and  looking  forward  to  the 
time  when  he  shall  feel  passionate  love, 
which  is  to  be  the  great  event  of  his  exist 
ence.  But  it  so  chances  that  he  never  falls 
in  love,  and  although  he  gives  up  the  ex 
pectation  of  so  doing,  and  marries  calmly, 
yet  it  is  somewhat  sadly,  with  sentiments 
merely  of  esteem  for  his  bride.  The  lady 
might  be  one  who  had  loved  him  early  in 
life,  but  whom  then,  in  his  expectation  of 
passionate  love,  he  had  scorned." 

No  doubt  more  than  one  of  these  sug 
gestions  fructified  in  the  minds  of  one  or 
another  reader  of  Hawthorne's  'Note- 
Books'  who  happened  also  to  be  writers  of 
fiction.  If  the  present  writer  may  offer 
himself  as  a  witness,  or  if  he  may  be  al 
lowed  to  enter  the  confessional,  he  admits 
that  a  short-story  of  his  composition, 
'Esther  Feverel,'  was  only  an  attempt  to 
carry  out  a  hint  of  Hawthorne's:  "An 
old  looking-glass;  somebody  finds  out  the 
61 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

secret  of  making  all  the  images  that  have 
been  reflected  in  it  pass  back  again  across 
its  surface."  And  everybody  knows  that 
it  was  a  story  told  to  Hawthorne  by  a 
friend,  and  duly  entered  in  the  'Note- 
Books'  which  he  abandoned  to  his  class 
mate  Longfellow  to  treat  in  verse  as 
'Evangeline.' 

In  the  volume  of  essays  and  sketches  of 
travel  which  Mr.  Howells  has  called 
'Literature  and  Life,'  and  to  which  he  gave 
an  accurate  sub-title  when  he  characterized 
them  as  'Studies,'  there  is  one  article  con 
taining  the  plot  for  a  story.  The  paper  is 
named  'Worries  of  a  Winter  Walk'  and 
it  narrates  how  Mr.  Howells,  in  his  pil 
grimages  about  New  York,  went  over 
toward  the  East  River  and  came  "upon  a 
bit  of  our  motley  life,  a  fact  of  our  piebald 
civilization,"  which  perplexed  him  and 
which  suggested  a  little  love-story.  He 
tells  us  how  the  first  notion  of  the  tale 
occurred  to  him,  evoked  by  an  unexpected 
fact  he  had  observed;  and  then  with  lam- 
62 


SEED-CORN   FOR  STORIES 

bent  humor  he  traces  the  succcessive  steps 
by  which  the  story  grew  in  his  mind,  as 
it  slowly  took  shape  and  began  to  have 
an  independent  existence.  It  was  an  idyl 
of  the  East  Side,  a  kodak-picture  snapped 
in  the  midst  of  our  cosmopolitan  conglom 
eration  of  foreign  peoples  here  in  this 
crowded  island.  Mr.  Howells  sets  forth 
one  after  another  the  variations  of  the 
little  tale  in  his  own  mind,  those  which  he 
decided  to  reject  as  well  as  those  which  he 
accepted.  And  finally  he  presents  us  with 
three  possible  terminations  of  the  story,  as 
though  in  doubt  himself  which  was  in  fact 
the  best.  The  narrative  is  shot  through 
with  the  gentle  irony  and  with  the  honest 
self-detachment  so  characteristic  of  the 
creator  of  'Silas  Lapham.' 

In  the  end  we  find  that  he  has  not  actu 
ally  written  out  his  story;  he  has  merely 
told  us  how  he  might  have  written  it.  But 
the  tale  is  complete;  and  we  can  see  for 
ourselves — if  only  we  bring  our  share  of 
sympathetic  imagination — how  it  would 
63 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

read  if  he  had  chosen  to  tell  it  simply  as 
he  has  told  his  other  stories.  To  the 
reader  to  whom  a  story  is  only  a  story — 
to  the  reader  who  is  entertained  only  by 
what  has  happened  and  who  is  interested 
only  in  discovering  how  it  turns  out  at  last 
— perhaps  the  irony  and  the  self-detach 
ment  are  a  little  disconcerting.  But  to  the 
scantier  band  who  are  alive  to  the  subtle 
relations  of  literature  and  life,  the  tale 
thus  presented  is  far  more  attractive  than 
if  it  had  been  presented  in  the  author's 
usual  fashion.  And  this  the  author  him 
self  knew,  with  that  understanding  of  the 
difficulties  of  his  craft  which  is  part  of  his 
equipment  as  a  man  of  letters.  The  story 
itself  remains  unwritten,  but  not  unwrit 
able;  and  any  other  teller  of  tales  who  is 
in  search  of  a  ready-made  plot  can  have 
it  for  the  taking.  But  if  any  teller  of 
tales  does  borrow  it  from  Mr.  Howells's 
book,  and  if  he  sets  it  forth  in  full  as 
though  it  had  happened,  he  may  rest  as 
sured  that  his  elaborative  art  is  likely  to 
64 


SEED-CORN  FOR  STORIES 

fail  of  achieving  the  successful  result  at 
tained  by  Mr.  Howells's  skilful  and  tactful 
commingling  of  ingenious  suggestion  and 
playful  irony. 

If  the  present  writer  may  again  call  him 
self  as  a  witness,  it  will  be  to  confess  that 
in  a  certain  little  tale  of  his  own,  'Love  at 
First  Sight/  containing  only  the  conversa 
tion  at  dinner  of  a  pretty  girl  with  a  young 
author,  he  scattered  broadcast  three  several 
suggestions  for  stories, — and  that  his  rea 
son  for  this  reckless  liberality  was  solely 
because  these  suggestions  seemed  to  him 
more  effective  as  mere  suggestions  than 
they  would  have  been  had  he  done  his  best 
to  work  them  out  conscientiously.  One 
was  only  an  alluring  title,  to  which,  how 
ever,  he  had  never  been  able  to  fit  an 
appropriate  plot:  'The  Parrot  that  talked 
in  his  Sleep.'  The  second  was  the  bare 
hint  for  a  Hawthornesque  sketch  to  be 
called  'At  the  End  of  his  Tether/  and  to 
describe  how  a  collector  of  morbid  taste 
brought  together  bits  of  the  ropes  with 
65 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

which  notorious  criminals  had  been  hanged, 
only  at  the  last  to  splice  these  together 
that  he  might  hang  himself.  And  the 
third,  the  'Queen  of  the  Living  Chessmen,' 
was  more  fully  developed,  and  the  young 
writer  of  fiction  was  able  to  outline  it  to 
the  pretty  girl  at  dinner  and  to  profit  by 
her  acute  criticism.  This  third  tale  thus 
sketched  out  seemed  to  have  dramatic  pos 
sibilities  of  its  own — possibilities  which  so 
strongly  impressed  the  editor  of  the  maga 
zine  to  which  the  manuscript  was  first  sub 
mitted,  that  he  rejected  'Love  at  First 
Sight'  with  the  remark  that  he  would  be 
glad  to  accept  the  'Queen  of  the  Living 
Chessmen'  if  the  author  would  write  that 
out  as  a  story  by  itself. 

Yet  this  is  just  what  the  author  was  too 
wary  to  attempt.  He  is  quite  willing  that 
it  should  be  undertaken  by  another  pen; 
but  he  had  his  own  reasons  for  believing 
that  the  notion  had  made  its  full  effect 
when  it  was  presented  merely  as  a  notion. 
And  it  is  his  belief  that  the  apparent  gen- 
66 


SEED-CORN  FOR  STORIES 

erosity  of  Mr.  Howells  and  of  Mr.  Al- 
drich — and  that  of  Poe  also — when  they 
gave  away  the  themes  for  tales  that  they 
had  invented  and  that  they  might  have 
written  themselves  had  they  so  chosen,  was 
the  result  of  a  delicate  perception  of  the 
fact  that  the  bare  theme  itself  is  often  as 
valuable  as  the  fully  clothed  tale  would  be. 
The  underlying  principle  which  has  gov 
erned  them  is  well  stated  by  the  younger 
Dumas  in  his  account  of  the  circumstances 
which  led  him  to  rewrite  a  play  brought 
to  him  by  Emile  de  Girardin,  the  'Supplice 
d'une  Femme.' 

Dumas  declares  that  all  he  found  in 
Girardin's  play  was  a  single  and  striking 
situation.  "But  a  situation  is  not  an  idea," 
he  explains.  "An  idea  has  a  beginning, 
a  middle  and  an  end — an  exposition,  a 
development,  and  a  conclusion.  Anybody 
can  happen  on  a  dramatic  situation;  but 
this  must  be  prepared  for,  made  acceptable, 
made  possible,  and  above  all,  untied  logi 
cally."  And  then  Dumas  generously 
67 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

throws  out  the  suggestion  of  a  new  and 
striking  dramatic  situation.  "A  young 
man  asks  the  hand  of  a  young  woman.  It 
is  accorded  to  him.  He  marries  her  civilly 
and  religiously;  and  at  the  very  moment 
when  he  is  about  to  take  her  away  with 
him,  he  learns  categorically  that  he  has 
married  his  sister.  That  is  a  situation, 
isn't  it?  and  most  interesting!  But  find 
a  way  out  of  it!  I  give  you  a  thousand 
guesses, — and  I  give  you  the  situation  if 
you  want  it.  He  who  shall  make  a  good 
play  with  this  as  his  starting-point  will  be 
the  veritable  author  of  the  piece,  and  I 
shall  not  urge  my  claim." 

It  is  proof  of  Dumas's  perfect  under 
standing  of  all  the  conditions  of  the  drama 
turgic  art,  that  when  two  young  French 
authors  took  him  at  his  word  and  actually 
made  a  play  out  of  this  suggestion  of  his, 
the  piece,  although  acted  by  the  admirable 
company  of  the  Odeon,  was  promptly  dis 
missed  as  impossible. 

(1904). 

68 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

ALTHOUGH  most  of  the   his 
torians  of  American  literature 
have  acknowledged  that  humor 
is  abundant  in  the  writings  of 
our  authors,  and  that  this  humor  is  dis 
tinctive  and  characteristic,  having  a  quality 
of  its  own,  easy  enough  to  perceive,  even 
if  difficult  to  define,  no  one  of  these  his 
torians   has   as   yet   cared   to   consider   at 
length  the  American  contribution  to  that 
special  form  of  humor  which  we  call  the 
satire  in  verse. 

Of  this  form  the  earliest  masters  were 
Horace  and  Juvenal,  although  it  is  still 
a  matter  of  dispute  which  of  the  two  was 
the  more  successful  in  this  field.  Dryden, 
who  appreciated  both  of  them,  and  who  had 
found  his  profit  in  a  shrewd  analysis  of 
69 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

their  methods,  held  for  the  later  Latin 
poet,  declaring  that  "the  sauce  of  Juvenal 
is  more  poignant  to  create  in  us  an  appetite 
of  reading  him."  And  then  the  robust 
British  bard  carried  still  further  this  culi 
nary  figure  of  speech,  asserting  that  "the 
meat  of  Horace  is  more  nourishing;  but 
the  cookery  of  Juvenal  more  exquisite :  so 
that,  granting  Horace  to  be  the  more  gen 
eral  philosopher,  we  cannot  deny  that 
Juvenal  was  the  greater  poet — I  mean  in 
satire." 

It  is  in  his  learned  and  acute  'Discourse 
concerning  the  Origin  and  Progress  of 
Satire'  that  Dryden  records  these  opinions; 
and  in  this  same  essay,  one  of  the  richest 
and  most  masterful  of  his  critical  papers, 
he  gives  full  mead  of  praise  to  the  French 
critic  whose  influence  upon  the  satirists 
coming  after  him  was  almost  as  domina 
ting  as  that  of  the  earlier  Roman  practi 
tioners  of  the  art.  "If  I  would  only  cross 
the  seas,"  Dryden  asserted,  "I  might  find 
in  France  a  living  Horace  and  a  Juvenal, 
70 


AMERICAN  SATIRES    IN  VERSE 

in  the  person  of  the  admirable  Boileau; 
whose  numbers  are  excellent,  whose 
thoughts  are  just,  whose  language  is  pure, 
whose  satire  is  pointed,  and  whose  sense 
is  close."  Then  the  Englishman  proceeded 
to  pay  to  the  Frenchman  a  compliment, 
which  might  well  be  bestowed  on  himself, 
saying  that  what  Boileau  "borrowed  from 
the  Ancients,  he  repays  with  usury  of  his 
own,  in  coin  as  good,  and  almost  as  uni 
versally  valuable." 

The  obvious  difference  between  the 
French  satirist  and  his  Roman  predeces 
sors  is  that  they  dealt  with  society  at 
large,  Horace  gently  laughing  at  the 
foibles  of  the  hour,  and  Juvenal  nobly 
scourging  the  deeper  vices  of  his  darker 
period,  whereas  Boileau  was  interested 
rather  more  in  literature  than  in  life,  car 
ing  less  for  the  diseases  of  the  body  politic 
than  for  lapses  from  the  laws  of  taste  and 
breaches  of  the  rules  of  art.  Here  he  was 
followed  by  Pope,  who  was  far  less  fortu 
nate  in  his  choice  of  authors  to  attack. 
71 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

The  judgment  of  posterity  has  confirmed 
most  of  the  contemporary  decisions  of 
Boileau ;  and  the  reputations  he  killed  have 
stayed  dead.  Not  so  with  Pope,  who  was 
ill-advised  enough  to  choose  as  the  heroes 
of  his  'Dunciad,'  Theobald  and  Colley 
Gibber,  writers  vulnerable  enough,  no 
doubt,  but  neither  of  them  dunces  by  any 
possible  extension  of  the  word.  Theobald, 
in  fact,  was  one  of  the  most  intelligent  of 
the  earlier  Shaksperian  commentators;  and 
Gibber,  however  absurd  a  figure  he  might 
make  as  poet-laureate,  was  the  author  not 
only  of  one  of  the  most  amusing  autobi 
ographies  in  the  language,  but  also  of  at 
least  one  comedy  which  has  survived  on 
the  stage  for  nearly  two  centuries. 

Just  as  one  British  compiler,  Dodd,  in 
his  comprehensive  collection  of  English 
epigrams,  did  not  care  to  include  any  speci 
mens  of  American  wit,  so  another  British 
editor  of  a  recent  anthology  of  'English 
Satires/  Mr.  Oliphant  Smeaton,  has  failed 
to  reproduce  a  single  American  example, 
72 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

although  in  his  critical  introduction  he 
mentions  more  than  one  of  our  authors 
with  casual  compliment.  It  may  be  that 
Mr.  Smeaton  deliberately  determined  to 
ignore  the  American  efforts  in  this  depart 
ment  of  literature ;  but  it  is  far  more  likely 
that  he  was  blandly  ignorant  of  the  value 
and  of  the  variety  of  American  satire  in 
verse.  In  each  of  the  three  main  divisions 
of  this  interesting  department  of  literature, 
in  the  genial  satire  of  society,  of  which 
Horace  set  the  example,  in  the  broader  and 
bolder  satire  of  contemporary  politics,  of 
which  Juvenal  has  left  the  unapproachable 
model,  and  in  the  more  personal  and  purely 
literary  satire,  of  which  Boileau  and  Pope 
have  been  accepted  as  masters, — in  each  of 
these  three  contiguous  fields  of  literary  en 
deavor,  American  authors  have  adventured 
themselves  with  varying  success. 

It  is  in  the  first  of  these  three  divisions, 

in  the  satire  of  society,  glancing  wittily  at 

the  men  and  the  manners  and  the  morals 

of  the  hour,  that  our  American  versifiers 

73 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

have  advanced  least  frequently.  Yet  even 
in  this  form  of  satire  the  last  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  saw  the  publication  of 
the  late  William  Allen  Butler's  'Nothing 
to  Wear,'  of  Mr.  Stedman's  brisk  and 
brilliant  'Diamond  Wedding,1  of  Judge 
Grant's  ingenious  'Little  Tin  Gods  on 
Wheels,'  and  of  the  adroitly  rhymed  'Bunt- 
ling  Ball,'  generally  ascribed  to  the  late 
Edgar  Fawcett.  In  the  first  half  of  the  cen 
tury  Halleck  and  Drake  printed  in  a  New 
York  evening  paper  the  series  of  lively 
lyrics  which  came  to  be  known  as  the 
'Croaker  Papers' — the  collaborating  au 
thors  having  chosen  to  sign  their  smart 
rhymes  with  the  name  of  a  character  in 
Goldsmith's  'Good-natured  Man.'  Unfor 
tunately  for  the  fame  of  the  associated 
bards,  their  themes  were  very  local  and 
of  little  lasting  importance,  so  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  copy  here  any  of  their 
clever  verses  without  an  apparatus  of  notes 
explaining  the  allusions.  What  is  very 
contemporary  is  likely  to  be  only  tempo- 
74 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

rary;  and  the  up-to-date  is  soon  seen  to 
be  out-of-date.  A  joke  is  no  longer  allur 
ing  when  it  demands  a  diagram  in  elucida 
tion  of  its  point. 

A  few  years  after  the  'Croaker  Papers' 
had  astonished  and  delighted  all  New 
York,  there  was  published  at  least  one 
formal  satire  of  society,  prepared  in  full 
acceptance  of  all  the  precedents  which  gov 
ern  a  metrical  attack  on  the  follies  and 
on  the  vices  of  the  moment.  This  is 
'Gotham  and  the  Gothamites.  A  Medley. 
New  York:  1823.  Published  for  the  Au 
thor.'  For  a  New  Yorker  at  the  begin 
ning  of  the  twentieth  century,  loving  this 
motley  and  mighty  city  of  ours  for  what 
it  is  already  and  also  for  what  it  is  to  be 
in  the  future,  there  is  not  a  little  hardship 
in  being  forced  to  withhold  high  praise 
from  a  bard  who  set  forth  the  pictorial 
charm  of  the  town  as  it  was  four  score 
years  ago : 

Beautiful  city !  like  Venus  from  the  deep, 
All  glowing  in  her  beauty,  dost  thou  spring 

75 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

From  out  the  waters,  that  murmuring  creep 

Around  thy  island-throne,  and  proudly  bring 
Unto  thy  footstool,  all  that  gorgeous  stream 

Of  pomp — of  wealth — of  richer  merchandise; 
The  world's  high  homage !    Yea,  and  I  have  seen 

The  mighty  sun  o'er  thy  tall  spires  arise, 
Pavillioned  in  his  glory ;  and  no  sight 

Was  lovelier 

After  this  unexpected  paean  on  the  beau 
ties  of  Manhattan,  which  are  even  now 
only  grudgingly  admitted,  there  is  cause 
for  sorrow  in  the  later  passages  of  the 
satire,  scarcely  any  of  which  would  reward 
quotation.  Perhaps  the  best  bit  is  that 
describing  the  degradation  of  the  theatre, 
— for  the  "decline  of  the  drama"  is  a  topic 
for  discussion  as  old  as  the  playhouse  itself : 

Such  is  the  drama;  unbound,  unrestrained, 
It  has  rushed  down  to  earth,  and  regained 
The  dust  from  which  it  rose;  that  which  was  art 
Approaching  affection,  hath  changed  to  low 
And  rude  burlesque,  and  coarse  buffoonery, 
Which  would  to  a  wandering  charlatan  impart 
The  blush  of  shame ;  distortion  and  ribaldry 
Are  on  the  check  and  lip  of  every  fostered  mime, 
Who  famished,  yet  impudent,  from  distant  clime 
Adventures,  dead  to  disgrace  and  shame. 
76 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

These  specimens  must  suffice  to  show 
that  'Gotham  and  the  Gothamites'  is  pretty 
small  beer,  rather  watery,  and  not  likely 
to  intoxicate  with  delight.  It  is  in  his 
notes  in  prose  rather  than  in  the  verse  of 
his  text  that  the  anonymous  bard  strives 
to  awaken  contempt  for  his  contemporaries. 
But  his  pins  are  pointless,  for  the  most 
part,  and  also  headless. 

Perhaps  it  is  among  the  social  rather 
than  among  the  literary  satires  that  we 
must  include  the  'Trollopiad;  or,  Travel 
ling  Gentlemen  in  America.  A  Satire.  By 
Nil  Admirari,  Esq.  New  York:  1837.' 
This  indignant  effusion  was  evoked  by  the 
swift  succession  of  British  books  of  travel 
in  America — Mrs.  Trollope's  volumes, 
Captain  Hall's  account  of  his  wanderings, 
and  the  'Journal'  of  Mrs.  Fanny  Kemble 
— books  now  happily  as  little  read  as  this 
metrical  retort  upon  them.  It  was  in  the 
very  first  number  of  the  'Sketch  Book'  that 
Irving  warned  British  writers  against  the 
danger  of  creating  ill-feeling  by  constant 
77 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

abuse  of  a  people  who  used  the  same  lan 
guage  and  who  were  likely  in  time  to  be 
come  the  more  important  half  of  the  race. 
His  good  advice  had  the  usual  fate  of 
friendly  warnings;  and  a  succession  of  trav 
ellers  from  across  the  sea  set  forth  in  black 
and  white  their  casual  impressions  of  the 
people  of  These  States,  revealing  some 
times  a  contemptuous  hostility  and  some 
times  that  lordly  condescension,  the  pleas 
ure  of  which  is  notoriously  one-sided. 

The  versifier  of  the  'Trollopiad'  was 
moved  to  wrath  and  called  for  the  scourge 
of  the  satiric  poet : 

POPE— GIFFORD— BYRON— what !   since   ye   are 

fled, 

Shall  folly  rage,  and  satire's  self  be  dead? 
Must  he  who  would  the  warning  voice  repeat, 
Breathe  it  in  numbers  exquisitely  sweet? 
And  pour  on  dunces'  ears  a  tide  of  song, 
As  Pope  harmonious  and  as  Dryden  strong? 
Oh  no !  my  humbler  muse  will  mark  the  foe, 
How  ill  so  e'er  the  unwonted  numbers  flow. 
In  this  alone  our  fools  are  chang'd  from  those, — 
They  scrawled  in  verse,  these  haply  write  in  prose. 
They  aimed  at  but  a  few  their  venom'd  dart, 

78 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

These  fain  would  stab  a  nation  to  the  heart. 

Unscathed,  unpunished  by  satiric  pen, 

Dulness  asserts  her  ancient  right  again: 

Her  thousand  children  from  her  sceptre  pass, 

Each  braying  loud,  proclaims  himself  an  ASS. 

The  mother  bids  them  venture  and  be  bold, 

Where  Freedom  reigns,  and  streets  are  paved  with 

gold. 
"Proceed,   my  sons,   where   TROLLOPE   leads  the 

way," 
"There  one  and  all  are  sure  to  have  their  day." 

Perhaps  the  most  quotable  passage  in 
this  rather  labored  set  of  couplets  is  that 
in  which  the  British  visitor  is  brought  face 
to  face  with  the  mightiest  of  our  natural 
wonders : 

Arriv'd,  at  last,  Niagara  to  scan, 
He  walks  erect  and  feels  himself  a  man; 
Surveys  the  cataract  with  a  "critic's  eye," 
Resolv'd  to  pass  no  "imperfections  by." 
Niag'ra.  wonder  of  the  Deity, 
Where  God's  own  spirit  reigns  in  majesty. 
With  sullen  roar  the  foaming  billows  sweep, 
A  world  of  waters  thunders  o'er  the  steep : 
The  unmingled  colours  laugh  upon  the  spray, 
And  one  eternal  rainbow  gilds  the  day. 
Oh  !  glorious  God  !    Oh  !  scene  surpassing  all ! 
"True,  true,"  quoth  he,  "  -'tis  something  of  a  fall." 
Now,  shall  unpunish'd  such  a  vagrant  band, 
79 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Pour  like  the  plagues  of  Egypt  on  the  land, 
Eyeing  each  fault,  to  all  perfection  blind, 
Shedding  the  taint  of  a  malignant  mind? 

No  indelible  lines  divide  social  satire 
from  literary  satire  on  the  one  side  and 
from  political  on  the  other;  but  it  is  per 
haps  closer  to  the  latter  than  to  the  former. 
Rather  toward  political  than  toward  social 
satire  have  American  wits  been  more  often 
attracted.  No  chapters  in  the  late  Pro 
fessor  Moses  Coit  Tyler's  'Literary  His 
tory  of  the  American  Revolution'  are 
more  interesting  or  more  illuminating 
than  those  in  which  he  considers  the 
pungent  verses  of  the  rival  bards  who 
attacked  the  British  cause,  or  who  de 
nounced  the  American,  during  the  years 
that  followed  the  breach  with  England. 
And  it  is  to  be  noted  that  although  the 
best  known  of  all  the  Revolutionary  satir 
ists — Freneau  especially,  whom  Tyler  terms 
a  "poet  of  hatred  rather  than  of  love" — 
were  on  the  right  side,  yet  the  other  party 
was  not  without  its  share  of  rhymesters, 
80 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

having  an  apt  command  of  epigram  and  an 
ample  supply  of  invective.  For  example, 
Dr.  Jonathan  Odell,  who  served  as  chaplain 
to  the  Loyalist  troops,  published  in  1779 
and  1780  four  brief  satires  which  have 
pith  and  point,  and  even  a  certain  individu 
ality  of  their  own,  although  obviously  imi 
tating  the  method  and  the  manner  of  Dry- 
den  and  of  Pope.  There  is  vigor  in  these 
verses : 

Was  Samuel  Adams  to  become  a  ghost, 
Another  Adams  would  assume  his  post ; 
Was  bustling  Hancock  numbered  with  the  dead, 
Another  full  as  wise  might  raise  his  head. 
What  if  the  sands  of  Laurens  now  were  run, 
How  should  we  miss  him — has  he  not  a  son? 
Or  what  if  Washington  should  close  his  scene, 
Could  none  succeed  him?    Is  there  not  a  Greene? 
Knave  after  knave  as  easy  could  we  join, 
As  new  emissions  of  the  paper  coin. 

But  nothing  produced  on  the  Tory  side 
has  half  the  broad  humor  and  the  pertinent 
wit  of  Trumbull's  'McFingal,'  published  in 
part  in  1776  and  completed  in  1782. 
Trumbull's  immediate  model  is  obviously 
'Hudibras;'  but  he  had  found  his  profit  in 
81 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

a  study  of  Churchill  as  well  as  of  Butler. 
Yet  'McFingal'  is  no  mere  imitation;  or 
else  it  would  have  gone  the  swift  way  of 
all  other  imitations.  As  Professor  Trent 
has  justly  remarked,  Trumbull's  mock  epic 
"shows  a  wide  and  digested  knowledge  of 
the  classics  and  of  the  better  British  poets; 
and  while  it  lacks  the  variety  and  inexhaust 
ible  wit  of  Butler's  performance,  it  is  in 
many  passages  hardly  inferior  to  that  in 
pointedness  and  in  its  command  of  the 
Hudibrastic  verse-form."  In  the  minting 
of  couplets  destined  to  proverbial  currency, 
Trumbull  has  often  the  felicity  of  Butler; 
and  some  of  his  sayings  have  had  the 
strange  fortune  of  ascription  to  the  satire 
upon  which  his  was  modeled.  For  example : 

No  man  e'er  felt  the  halter  draw 
With  good  opinion  of  the  law. 

and  again, 

But  optics  sharp  it  needs,  I  wean, 
To  see  what  is  not  to  be  seen. 

Trumbull  has  also  not  a  little  of  Butler's 

82 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

daring  ingenuity  in  the  devising  of  novel 
rhymes : 

Behold !  the  world  shall  stare  at  new  sets 
Of  home-made  ears  in  Massachusetts. 

After  the  Revolution,  and  before  the 
constitution  gave  to  the  scarcely  United 
States  the  firm  government  which  the  na 
tion  needed,  during  what  the  late  John 
Fiske  aptly  called  "the  critical  period  of 
American  history,"  Trumbull  joined  with 
others  of  the  little  group  known  as  the 
"Hartford  Wits"  in  a  satire  called  the 
'Anarchiad,'  published  in  1786-87,  in  which 
faction  was  denounced  in  scathing  terms : 

Stand  forth,  ye  traitors,  at  your  country's  bar, 
Inglorious  authors  of  intestine  war, 
What  countless  mischiefs  from  their  labors  rise ! 
Pens  dipped  in  gall,  and  lips  inspired  with  lies ! 
Ye  sires  of  ruin,  prime  detested  cause 
Of  bankrupt  faith,  annihilated  laws, 
Of  selfish  systems,  jealous,  local  schemes, 
And  unvoiced  empire  lost  in  empty  dreams ; 
Your  names,  expanding  with  your  growing  crime, 
Shall  float  disgustful  down  the  stream  of  time ; 
Each  future  age  applaud  the  avenging  song, 
An  outraged  nature  vindicate  the  wrong. 

83 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

All  things  considered,  the  most  amusing 
political  effort  in  this  field  between  the 
Revolution  and  the  War  of  1812,  was  the 
'Embargo;  or,  Sketches  of  the  Times.  A 
Satire  by  a  Youth  of  Thirteen;  Boston, 
1808.  Printed  for  the  purchasers.'  This 
met  with  so  much  success  that  it  was  issued 
in  a  second  edition  in  the  following  year. 
The  youth  of  thirteen  survived  to  be  the 
boy  of  eighteen,  who  wrote  'Thanatopsis,' 
and  who  was  the  earliest  American  poet  to 
transmute  into  his  verse  the  beauty  of  nature 
here  in  America.  Bryant  lived  to  be  not 
a  little  annoyed  when  he  was  reminded  of 
his  youthful  indiscretion,  for  with  the  flight 
of  time  he  outgrew  the  political  opinions 
he  had  taken  over  from  his  father  and 
from  his  father's  Federalist  friends.  Bry 
ant  came  to  have  a  high  regard  for  the 
character  and  for  the  public  services  and 
even  for  most  of  the  political  theories  of 
the  Jefferson  whom  the  youth  of  thirteen 
had  ignorantly  berated : 


84 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

And  thou  the  scorn  of  every  patriot's  name 
Thy  country's  ruin  and  thy  council's  shame! 
Poor  servile  thing !  derision  of  the  brave ! 
Who  erst  from  Tarleton  fled  to  Carter's  Cave ; 
Thou  who  when  menaced  by  perfidious  Gaul, 
Did'st  prostrate  to  her  whisker'd  minions  fall ; 
And  when  our  cash  her  empty  bags  supplied 
Did'st  meanly  strive  the  foul  disgrace  to  hide; 
Go,  wretch,  resign  the  Presidential  chair, 
Disclose  thy  secret  measures,  foul  or  fair. 
Go  search  with  curious  eye  for  horrid  frogs 
Mid  the  wild  wastes  of  Louisianian  bogs ; 
Or  where  the  Ohio  rolls  his  turbid  stream, 
Dig  for  huge  bones,  thy  glory  and  thy  theme. 
Go  scan,  Philosophist,  thy  Sally's  charms, 
And  sink  supinely  in  her  sable  arms ; 
But  quit  to  abler  hands  the  helm  of  State. 

Beyond  all  question  the  best  American 
political  satire  is  Lowell's  'Biglow  Papers,' 
the  first  series  being  written  during  the 
Mexican  War  and  the  second  during  the 
Civil  War.  Although  either  series  may 
seem  fragmentary,  each  has  a  real  unity 
of  its  own;  the  aim  and  intent  is  ever  the 
same.  And  the  unforgettable  figure  of 
Hosea  Biglow  dominates  both  sets  of 
satiric  lyrics.  Lowell  was  at  once  a  Puri- 
85 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

tan  by  descent,  a  poet  by  gift  of  nature, 
and  a  wit  by  stroke  of  fate;  and  in  the 
'Biglow  Papers'  we  have  revealed  the  Puri 
tan  poet  who  could  not  help  being  witty. 
He  could  not  help  preaching,  for  as  he 
said  "all  New  England  was  a  meeting 
house"  when  he  was  young;  and  a  satirist 
must  be  a  preacher  in  his  own  way.  He 
had  enlisted  for  the  war,  and  he  was  ever 
fighting  the  good  fight.  His  heart  was 
in  his  cause ;  and  his  desire  to  help  it  along, 
made  him  conquer  the  indolence  which  so 
often  prevented  his  doing  his  best  as  a 
poet.  Lowell  tended  to  improvise,  to 
brood  long  over  a  theme,  and  then  to  pour 
out  his  lines  in  a  sudden  burst  of  inspiration, 
not  always  taking  the  trouble  afterward  to 
revise  and  to  refine,  to  finish  and  to  polish, 
and  to  make  the  most  of  his  genius.  It 
is  this  which  accounts  for  the  inequality 
of  his  odes.  But  when  he  was  at  work  on 
the  'Biglow  Papers'  he  wanted  to  bring 
his  message  home,  and  he  waited  until  he 
had  found  a  taking  rhythm  and  a  refrain 
86 


AMERICAN  SATIRES   IN  VERSE 

that  would  sing  itself  into  the  memory. 
And  so  we  cannot  forget,  even  if  we  would, 
that 

John  P 
Robinson,  he 
Sez  he  won't  vote  for  Guvnor  B. 

and  that 

Ole  Uncle  S,  sez  he,  "I  guess 

It  is  a  fact,"  sez  he, 
"The  surest  plan  to  make  a  man 

Is,  think  him  so,  J.  B. 
Ez  much  ez  you  or  me !" 

Here,  as  so  often  in  the  history  of  all 
the  arts,  we  see  that  the  artist  has  profited 
by  his  willingness  to  take  time  and  trouble, 
and  by  his  honesty  in  resolutely  grappling 
"with  difficulty.  The  two  refrains  quoted 
above  are,  one  of  them  from  the  first  series, 
and  the  other  from  the  second;  and  this 
reminds  us  that  Lowell  succeeded  as  well 
the  second  time  he  chose  Hosea  Biglow 
for  his  mouthpiece,  as  he  did  the  first  time, 
although  in  literature  a  sequel  is  generally 
87 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

a  feeble  thing,  a  faint  imitation  of  its  more 
vigorous  elder  brother.  The  motive  that 
impelled  the  poet  was  even  stronger  dur 
ing  the  Civil  War  than  it  had  been  fifteen 
years  earlier;  and  the  wit  was  no  less  keen 
nor  the  humor  less  contagious.  That 
Heaven  is  on  the  side  of  the  heaviest  bat 
talions,  is  an  old  saying,  and  almost  equally 
venerable  is  the  belief  that  it  is  generally 
the  losing  cause  which  inspires  the  poet  and 
also  the  satirist.  Certainly  Aristophanes 
seems  to  us  now  to  have  been  on  the  wrong 
side  in  the  'Clouds'  and  in  the  'Knights;' 
and  Butler  in  his  'Hudibras'  was  making 
fun  of  the  stern  Puritan  who  had  enough 
iron  in  his  blood  to  win  the  victory  at  last. 
But  here  in  the  United  States  we  have  been 
more  fortunate.  Clever  as  were  some  of 
the  Tory  wits,  the  one  satire  of  the  Revo 
lution  which  can  still  be  read  with  pleasure, 
is  the  'McFingal'  of  the  more  patriotic 
Trumbull;  and  in  the  Civil  War  nothing 
produced  in  the  South  can  withstand  com 
parison  with  the  'Biglow  Papers.' 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

In  the  third  division  of  satire,  the  purely 
literary,  we  find  Lowell  again  the  chief  fig 
ure  with  the  'Fable  for  Critics,'  published 
in  1848,  the  same  year  that  he  sent  forth 
the  first  series  of  the  'Biglow  Papers'  and 
also  the  more  purely  poetic  'Vision  of  Sir 
Launfal.'  But  the  'Fable  for  Critics'  was 
preceded  by  another  formal  and  elaborate 
attempt  at  literary  satire,  called  'Truth,' 
published  in  1832;  and  it  was  followed 
by  yet  another  entitled  'Parnassus  in  Pil 
lory,'  issued  in  1851.  Neither  of  these 
attains  to  the  level  of  Lowell's  brilliant  skit; 
and  they  soon  faded  out  of  remembrance. 
Yet  each  of  them  has  an  interest  of  its 
own,  and  calls  for  cursory  consideration 
here. 

Truth,  a  Gift  for  Scribblers,'  by  Wil 
liam  J.  Snelling,  seems  to  have  achieved 
a  certain  success,  sufficient  at  least  to  cause 
it  to  be  reprinted, — since  it  is  a  second 
edition  "with  additions  and  emendations" 
that  I  now  have  before  me.  Mr.  Snelling 
tells  us  how  he  heard 
89 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

a  voice  that  cries,  "Lift  up  thine  hand 
Against  the  legions  of  this  locust  band; 
Let  brain-sick  youths  the  wholesome  scourge  endure; 
Their  case  is  urgent.    Spare  not !    Kill  or  cure ! 
Hang,  hang  them  up,  like  smelts  upon  a  string, 
And  o'er  their  books  a  rcquicscat  sing: 
Arise  ! — convince  thy  country  of  her  shame ; 
Rise,  ere  her  genius  be  no  more  a  name ! 

Rous'd  by  the  call  of  Duty,  I  obey; 

I  draw  the  sword,  and  fling  the  sheath  away. 

And  with  the  blade  thus  drawn,  Mr. 
Snelling  runs  amuck  amid  the  minor  Amer 
ican  authors  of  his  day,  hewing  and  hack 
ing,  and  yet  not  revealing  any  gift  of 
swordsmanship  which  would  let  him  wound 
with  a  sharp  epithet  or  kill  with  a  piercing 
couplet.  Here  is  a  sample  of  his  execution 
wrought  upon  the  once-popular  N.  P. 
Willis: 

Muse,  shall  we  not  a  few  brief  lines  afford 
To  give  poor  Natty  P. — his  meet  reward  ? 
What  has  he  done  to  be  despised  by  all 
Within  whose  hands  his   harmless   scribblings   fall? 
Why,  as  in  band-box  trim,  he  walks  the  streets, 
Turns  up  the  nose  of  every  man  he  meets, 
As  if  it  scented  carrion?     Why,  of  late, 
Do  all  the  critics  claw  his  shallow  pate? 
90 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

From  a  note  in  this  second  edition, 
it  appears  that  Willis  had  retorted  with  an 
unworthy  attempt  at  an  epigram,  to  which 
Snelling  retaliated  with  three  several  efforts 
of  his  own,  not  quite  so  gross  as  Willis's, 
but  far  feebler.  A  man  of  taste  often  finds 
it  needful  to  hold  his  nose  as  he  reads  the 
lines  of  the  less  inspired  satirists;  and  as 
to  the  reasons  for  this  he  had  best  hold 
his  tongue  forever  after.  Far  more  agree 
able  is  it  to  quote  Snelling's  eulogy  of  Fitz- 
Greene  Halleck,  whose  fame  is  now  sadly 
faded: 

Dear  Halleck,  wither'd  be  the  hands  that  dare 
One  laurel  from  thy  nobler  brow  to  tear ; 
Accept  the  tribute  of  a  muse  inclin'd 
To  bow  to  nothing,  save  the  power  of  mind. 
Bard  of  Bozzaris,  shall  thy  native  shore 
List  to  thy  harp  and  mellow  voice  no  more? 
Shall  we,  with  skill  like  thine  so  near  at  hand, 
Import  our  music  from  a  foreign  land? 
While  Mirror  Morris  chants  in  whimpering  note, 
And  croaking  Dana  strains  his  screech-owl  throat; 
While  crazy  Neal  to  metre  shakes  his  chains, 
And  fools  are  found  to  listen  to  his  strains, 
Wilt  thou  be  silent?    Wake,  O  Halleck,  wake ! 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Thine  and  thy  country's  honor  are  at  stake; 
Wake,  and  redeem  the  pledge ;  thy  vantage  keep ; 
While  Paulding  wakes  and  writes,  shall  Halleck 
sleep  ? 

Snelling  has  words  of  praise  also  for 
Bryant;  but  he  falls  foul  of  Whittier;  and 
he  delights  in  abuse  of  the  first  efforts  of 
the  native  American  dramatists,  especially 
deriding  Stone,  who  had  just  devised  'Meta- 
mora'  for  the  robust  talents  of  Edwin 
Forrest. 

It  was  not  Snelling's  forgotten  'Truth' 
which  evoked  the  next  and  the  best  of 
American  literary  satires — the  only  one 
indeed  which  has  a  permanent  value.  The 
immediate  cause  of  the  'Fable  for  Critics' 
seems  to  have  been  Leigh  Hunt's  'Feast 
of  the  Poets,'  although  the  influence  of 
Goldsmith's  'Retaliation'  is  also  apparent. 
Indeed,  it  is  only  in  'Retaliation'  that  we 
can  find  a  gallery  of  lightly  limned  contem 
porary  portraits  worthy  of  comparison  with 
the  collection  contained  in  the  'Fable.'  Per 
fect  as  is  Goldsmith's  portrayal  of  Burke 
92 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

and  Reynolds  and  Garrick,  it  is  not  finer 
or  truer  than  Lowell's  depicting  of  Irving 
or  of  Cooper,  or  than  the  companion  pic 
tures  of  Emerson  and  Carlyle.  In  his  affec 
tionate  essay  on  Dryden,  Lowell  quotes 
Dryden's  assertion  that  Chaucer  was  ua 
perpetual  fountain  of  good  sense,"  only  to 
suggest  that  the  phrase  may  be  applied  to 
Dryden  himself ;  it  fits  the  American  critic- 
poet  almost  as  well  as  the  British  poet- 
critic.  Half  a  century  is  it  since  Lowell 
narrated  his  'Fable;'  and  even  at  this  late 
date  his  criticism  seems  to  us  to  be  rarely 
at  fault. 

Not  only  did  he  set  forth  fifty  years 
ago  an  opinion  of  his  contemporaries  antici 
pating  the  judgment  of  the  twentieth  cen 
tury,  but  he  chose  with  unerring  instinct 
the  writers  whom  it  was  worth  while  to 
consider.  Here  is  the  weak  spot  of  most 
literary  satires;  they  deal  with  the  dead 
already;  they  slay  the  petty  critics  and 
minor  poets  certain  to  die  of  their  own 
accord,  and  to  be  forgotten  in  a  flash.  This 
93 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

is  what  makes  the  'Dunciad'  unreadable 
nowadays  except  by  indefatigable  students 
of  the  period.  Pope  gratified  his  spite 
against  the  criticasters  and  the  poetasters, 
victims  really  unworthy  of  his  wit;  and  as 
a  result  his  lines  are  now  read  only  by  those 
attracted  by  his  fame.  His  theme  is  not  to 
day  tempting  to  the  general  reader,  and  the 
resolute  perusal  of  the  'Dunciad'  demands 
both  courage  and  endurance.  But  the 
Table  for  Critics'  is  alluring  not  only  to 
admirers  of  Lowell,  but  to  all  having  an 
interest  in  the  group  of  American  men  of 
letters  who  adorned  the  middle  of  the  nine 
teenth  century. 

Of  course  there  are  those  who  hold  that 
the  machinery  of  the  fable  creaks  a  little, 
that  the  rattling  rhymes  run  away  with  the 
lyrist  more  than  once,  that  the  rhythm  is 
somewhat  rugged  now  and  again,  that  the 
puns  are  not  always  as  expensive  as  they 
might  be,  that  there  are  other  blemishes  to 
be  detected  by  a  severe  critic.  But  ever 
against  these  trifling  defects  set  the  brilliant 
94 


AMERICAN  SATIRES   IN  VERSE 

truth  of  the  characters  of  Hawthorne  and 
Holmes  and  Whittier.  Consider,  for  ex 
ample,  the  cleverness  of  the  portrait  of 
Poe,  and  note  that  the  sketch  is  really 
just,  in  spite  of  the  crackling  of  epigram : 

There    comes    Poe,    with    his    raven,    like    Barnaby 

Rudge, 
Three   fifths   of   him   genius   and   two   fifths   sheer 

fudge. 

Who  talks  like  a  book  of  iambs  and  pentameters, 
In  a  way  to  make  people  of  common  sense  damn 

metres, 
Who  has  written  some  things  quite  the  best  of  their 

kind, 
But  the  heart  somehow  seems  all  squeezed  out  by 

the  mind,  .   .    . 

And  the  sketch  of  Bryant,  with  all  the 
ingenuity  of  its  punning  and  all  the  arti 
ficiality  of  its  rhyming,  is  not  a  caricature 
but  a  true  portrait: 

There  is  Bryant,  as  quiet,  as  cool,  and  as  dignified, 
As  a  smooth,  silent  iceberg,  that  never  is  ignified, 
Save  when  the  reflection  'tis  kindled  o'  nights 
With  a  semblance  of  flame  by  the  chill   Northern 

Lights. 
He  may  rank  (Griswold  says  so)  first  bard  of  your 

nation 

95 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

(There's  no  doubt  that  he  stands  in  supreme  ice- 

olation), 

Your  topmost  Parnassus  he  may  set  his  heel  on, 
But  no  warm  applauses  come,  peal   following  peal 

on,— 
He's  too  smooth  and  too  polished  to  hang  any  zeal 

on: 
Unqualified  merits,  I'll  grant,  if  you  choose,  he  has 

'em, 

But  he  lacks  the  one  merit  of  kindling  enthusiasm; 
If  he  stir  you  at  all,  it  is  just,  on  my  soul, 
Like  being  stirred  up  with  the  very  North  Pole. 

He  is  very  nice  reading  in  summer,  but  inter 

Nos,  we  don't  want  extra  freezing  in  winter; 

Take  him  up  in  the  depth  of  July,  my  advice  is, 

When  you  feel  an  Egyptian  devotion  to  ices. 

But,  deduct  all  you  can,  there's  enough  that's  right 
good  in  him. 

He  has  a  true  soul  for  field,  river,  and  wood  in  him ; 

And  his  heart,  in  the  midst  of  brick  walls,  or 
where'er  it  is, 

Glows,  softens,  and  thrills  with  the  tenderest  chari 
ties. 

If  a  properly  annotated  edition  of  the 
'Fable  for  Critics'  should  ever  be  published, 
— and  it  would  be  warmly  welcomed  by  all 
students  of  American  literature — the  editor 
will  call  attention  to  Lowell's  own  opinion 
96 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

of  this  passage,  expressed  in  one  of  his  let 
ters.  He  declared  that  his  criticism  of 
Bryant  was  "funny  and  as  fair  as  I  could 
make  it,  immitigably  just.  Indeed,  I  have 
endeavored  to  be  so  in  all."  The  friend 
to  whom  he  was  writing  had  informed 
Lowell  that  Bryant  seemed  to  think  that 
the  younger  poet  had  been  borrowing  from 
him.  It  is  to  this  that  Lowell  was  refer 
ring  when  he  continued,  "I  am  glad  I  did 
Bryant  before  I  got  your  letter  .... 
/  steal  from  him  indeed !  If  he  knew  me  he 
would  not  say  so.  When  I  steal  I  shall 
go  to  a  specie-vault,  not  to  a  till." 

Although  he  was  dealing  solely  with  the 
literature  of  his  own  country,  Lowell  had 
ever  a  cosmopolitan  point  of  view,  while 
still  keeping  his  feet  firm  on  his  native  soil. 
He  was  never  either  provincial  in  self-asser 
tion  or  colonial  in  self-abasement.  No  one 
had  higher  ideals  for  America ;  and  no  one 
was  prompter  to  see  the  absurdity  of  hasty 
assertions  that  these  ideals  had  already  been 
attained.  He  refused  resolutely  to  see  a 
97 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Swan  of  Avon  in  any  of  our  wild  geese. 
He  laughed  to  scorn  the  suggestion  that 
we  ought  to  have  great  poets  of  our  own 
merely  because  of  the  vastness  of  the  coun 
try.  He  had  a  healthy  detestation  of  that 
confession  of  inferiority  which  consists  in 
calling  Irving  the  "American  Goldsmith," 
and  Cooper  the  "American  Scott."  It  was 
this  youthful  foible — feebler  now  than  it 
was  when  the  'Fable'  was  written,  but  not 
yet  quite  dead — that  Lowell  girded  against 
in  one  of  his  most  brilliant  passages : 

By  the  wav.  'tis  a  fact  that  displays  what  profusions 
Of  all  kinds  of  greatness  bless  free  institutions, 
That  while  the  Old  World  has  produced  barely  eight 
Of  such  poets  as  all  men  agree  to  call  great, 
And  of  other  great  characters  hardly  a  score 
(One  might  safely   say  less  than  that  rather  than 

more), 

With  you  every  year  a  whole  crop  is  begotten, 
They're  as  much  of  a  staple  as  corn  is,  or  cotton ; 
Why,  there's    scarcely    a  huddle    of    log-huts    and 

shanties 
That  has   not   brought    forth   its   own   Miltons   and 

Dantes ; 
I    myself   know    ten   Byrons,    one    Coleridge,    three 

Shelleys, 

98 


AMERICAN  SATIRES  IN  VERSE 

Two  Raphaels,  six  Titians,  (I  think)  one  Apelles, 
Leonardos  and  Rubenses  plenty  as  lichens, 
One  (but  that  one  is  plenty)  American  Dickens, 
A  whole  flock  of  Lambs,  any  number  of  Tennysons, — 
In  short,  if  a  man  has  the  luck  to  have  any  sons, 
He  may  feel  pretty  certain  that  one  out  of  twain 
Will  be  some  very  great  person  over  again. 

This  same  foible  we  find  animadverted 
upon  again  in  'Parnassus  in  Pillory.  A 
Satire.  By  Motley  Manners,  Esquire. 
New  York:  1851.'  The  anonymous  bard, 
now  known  to  be  A.  J.  H.  Duganne,  be 
moaned  the  sad  plight  of  his  own  country : 

Oh,  hapless  land  of  mine !  whose  country-presses 
Labor  with  poets  and  with  poetesses; 
Where  Helicon  is  quaffed  like  beer  at  table, 
And  Pegasus  is  "hitched"  in  every  stable; 
Where  each  smart  dunce  presumes  to  print  a  journal, 
And  every  journalist  is  dubbed  a  "colonel;" 
Where  love-sick  girls  on  chalk  and  water  thrive, 
And  prove,  by  singing,  they're  unfit  to  wive ; 
Where  Gray  might  Miltons  by  the  score  compute — 
"Inglorious"  all,  but,  ah!  by  no  means  "mute." 

And  there  is  sense  as  well  as  vigor  in 
his  denunciation  of  that  colonial  attitude 

99 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

of  so  many  Americans  in  the  days  before 
the  Civil  War  had  made  us  somewhat  less 
self-conscious : 

The  British  critics — be  it  to  their  glory, 

When  they  abuse  us,  do  it  con  amorc; 

There's  no  half-way  about  your  bulldog  pure, 

And  there's  no  nonsense  with  your  "Scotch  reviewer." 

Heaven  knows  how  often  we've  been  whipped  like 

curs, 

By  those  to  whom  we've  knelt  as  worshippers ; 
Heaven  only  knows  how  oft,  like  froward  chitlings, 
Our  authors  have  been  snubbed  by  British  witlings; 
Our  mountains  ranked  as  mole-hills — our  immense 
And  awful  forests  styled  "Virginny  fence;" 
Our  virtues  all  but  damned  with  faintest  praise, 
And  our  faults  blazoned  to  the  widest  gaze ! 
I  find  no  fault  with  them — they  praise  us  rarely ; 
As  for  abuse — we're  open  to  it  fairly; 
But  faith,  it  galls  me,  and  I'll  not  deny  it, 
To  mark  our  own  most  deferential  quiet ; 
To  note  the  whining,  deprecative  air 
With  which  we  beg  for  praise,  or  censure  bear; 
Shrink  back  in  terror  if  our  gifts  they  spurn, 
And  if  they  smite  one  cheek,  the  other  turn ; — 
Begging  that  they'll  excuse  a  patient  dunce, 
Who,  if  he  could,  would  offer  both  at  once. 

Perhaps  as  good  as  any  of  the  portraits 
in  'Parnassus  in  Pillory'  is  this  of  Lowell: 
100 


AMERICAN  SATI£'£S,\IN  VERSE; 


O,  LOWELL !  now  sententious — now  most  wordy — 
Thy  harp  Cremona  half — half  hurdy-gurdy; 
Wouldst  thou  arise,  and  climb  the  steeps  of  heaven? 
Sandals  and  staff  are  for  thy  journey  given; 
Wouldst  thou  embrace  the  poet-preacher's  lot? 
Nor  purse  nor  scrip  will  lift  thy  steps  a  jot! 
Forth  on  the  highways  of  the  general  mind, 
Thy  soul  must  walk,  in  oneness  with  mankind. 
Thou  hast  done  well,  but  thou  canst  yet  do  better. 
And  winning  credit,  make  the  world  thy  debtor; 
Pour  out  thy  heart — albeit  with  flaws  and  fractures : 
Give  us  thyself — no  "Lowell  manufactures." 

The  past  fifty  years  have  not  called  forth 
another  formal  satire  of  contemporary  lit 
erature,  although  the  need  is  as  acute  now 
as  it  ever  was,  and  although  the  public  relish 
for  ill-natured  remarks  is  as  keen  as  ever. 
Probably  one  reason  why  the  longer  satire 
in  verse  does  not  make  its  appearance  is 
because  the  immense  multiplication  of  peri 
odicals,  weekly  and  monthly,  affords  to  the 
intending  satirist  a  chance  to  shoot  his 
shafts  one  by  one  in  the  papers  without 
having  to  save  them  up  for  discharge  in  a 
volley  and  in  a  volume.  Thus  it  was  that 
the  late  H.  C.  Bunner — a  cordial  lover  of 

IOI 


OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 


poetry,  with  a  trained  craftsman's  appre 
ciation  of  technic,  with  a  keen  sense  of 
humor  and  with  a  singular  gift  of  parody, 
—  put  forth  his  satires  week  by  week  in  the 
paper  he  had  conducted  with  prosperity. 
He  evoked  the  figure  of  V.  Hugo  Dusen- 
bury,  a  professional  poet,  understanding 
all  branches  of  the  business,  and  ready  to 
supply  any  kind  of  verse  on  demand,  in 
quantities  to  suit  the  customer.  If  some 
future  enthusiast  shall  ransack  the  files  of 
Puck  to  edit  the  'Life  and  Literary  Remains 
of  V.  Hugo  Dusenbury,'  a  younger  genera 
tion  of  readers  will  be  enabled  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  an  original  character 
sketched  with  journalistic  breadth  and  free 
dom,  but  not  really  caricatured  beyond  re 
semblance.  And  the  poems  which  this  pro 
fessional  poet  produced  by  request  and  to 
meet  the  market,  are  parodies,  most  of 
them,  or  rather  sympathetic  imitations, 
satiric  enough  at  times,  appreciative  often, 
and  never  malignant. 
(1904). 

IO2 


VI 

AMERICAN    EPIGRAMS 

IN  the  elaborate  and  scholarly  intro 
duction  to  Mr.  Dodd's  comprehen 
sive    collection    of    the    'Epigram 
matists'  may  be  found  an  amusing 
illustration    of    the    inability    of    a    man 
of  letters  to  accept  the  obvious  fact  that 
language   is   made    in    the   street   as   well 
as  in  the  study,  and  that  in  common  usage 
the  meaning  of  a  word  may  broaden  de 
spite  the  utmost  endeavor  of  precisians  to 
keep  it  restricted.     A  word  has  the  mean 
ing  which  the  plain  people  give  it;  and  the 
trained  and  careful  student  of  speech  must 
kick  in  vain  against  the  modifications  of 
meaning  which  take  place  in  spite  of  his 
protests.     Mr.  Dodd  insists  that  the  word 
epigram,  being  taken  over  from  the  Greek, 
must  preserve  in  English  exactly  the  sig- 
103 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

nificance  that  it  had  in  the  language  from 
which  we  have  derived  it.  In  Greek  epi 
gram,  epigraph  and  epitaph  have  substan 
tially  the  same  meaning;  and  all  three 
words  were  applied  to  brief  lyrics  elevated 
in  thought  and  having  the  lapidary  con 
cision  of  an  inscription.  In  Latin,  Martial 
debased  the  epigram;  and  in  his  hands 
it  is  a  metrical  phrasing  of  an  ingenious 
point  or  of  a  keen  retort.  It  is  Martial 
whom  the  epigrammatists  of  the  modern 
languages  have  taken  as  their  master;  and 
therefore  in  English  the  primary  meaning 
of  epigram  is  no  longer  a  tiny  lyric,  lofty 
in  sentiment,  and  graceful  in  phrasing;  it 
is  more  an  ingeniously  turned  witticism 
adroitly  rhymed. 

Landor,  who  might  almost  be  called  a 
belated  Athenian,  declared  that  one  of 
his  own  brief  pieces  "resembles  not  those 
ridiculous  quibbles  which  the  English  in 
particular  call  epigrams,  but  rather  .  .  . 
those  exquisite  eidyllia,  which  are  modestly 
called  epigrams  by  the  Greeks."  And 
104 


AMERICAN    EPIGRAMS 

Mr.  Dodd  insists  again  and  again  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  epigram  unless 
it  follows  the  Greek  model.  That  the 
English  word  epigram  still  retains  this 
special  meaning  may  perhaps  be  admitted, 
but  this  is  no  longer  its  only  meaning, — 
or  even  its  accepted  meaning;  and  any 
writer  who  uses  language  as  a  means  of 
communicating  his  thought  to  the  main 
body  of  his  readers,  and  who  desires  to  be 
understood  by  them,  will  do  well  to  find 
some  other  word  to  describe  the  epigram 
of  the  purest  Greek  type,  and  will  accept 
the  fact  that  in  ordinary  every-day  English 
epigram  now  evokes  the  idea  of  a  brilliant 
witticism.  The  common  usage  of  the  word 
nowadays  is  revealed  by  the  frequent  de 
scription  of  the  dialogue  of  Congreve  and 
Sheridan  as  epigrammatic. 

It  is  not  that  English  literature  is  defi 
cient  in  brief  poems  having  the  special 
qualities  that  we  find  in  the  Greek  epigram. 
Even  in  the  'Greek  Anthology'  it  would  be 
difficult  to  discover  a  poem  more  delicately 
105 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

felicitous  than  the  epitaph  on  the  Countess 
of  Pembroke: 

Underneath  this  sable  hearse 
Lies  the  subject  of  all  verse, 
Sidney's  sister,  Pembroke's  mother; 
Death,  ere  thou  hast  slain  another 
Learn'd  and  fair  and  good  as  she 
Time  shall  throw  a  dart  at  thee. 

And  it  would  not  be  an  arduous  task  to 
collect  other  instances  where  the  poets  of 
our  language  have  rivalled  the  austere  per 
fection  of  the  Greek.  But  none  the  less 
has  epigram  come  to  indicate  to  us  not  a 
votive  tablet  but  a  sparkling  retort.  Per 
haps  the  best  definition  of  what  we  moderns 
understand  by  an  epigram  is  contained  in 
one  which  is  ascribed  by  some  to  an  un 
known  Latin  writer  and  by  others  to  the 
Spanish  fabulist,  Yriarte: 

The  qualities  all  in  a  bee  that  we  meet, 

In  an  epigram  never  should  fail ; 
The  body  should  always  be  little  and  sweet, 

And  a  sting  should  be  felt  in  its  tail. 

This  is  at  once  a  description  and  an  illus 
tration;  and  to  be  set  by  the  side  of  it  is 

106 


AMERICAN    EPIGRAMS 

an  even  terser  attempt  by  an  anonymous 
wit: 

What  is  an  epigram?  a  dwarfish  whole, 
Its  body  brevity,  and  wit  its  soul. 

One  of  these  is  Latin  or  Spanish  and  the 
other  is  British ;  and  to  them  may  be  added 
a  third  by  an  American,  Mr.  George 
Birdseye : 

The  diamond's  virtues  well  might  grace 

The  epigram,  and  both  excel 
In  brilliancy  in  smallest  space, 

And  power  to  cut,  as  well. 

Although  we  no  longer  demand  in  an 
epigram  the  ancient  ingenuity  of  sentiment, 
preferring  the  modern  wit  that  seeks  to 
surprise,  we  ought  not  to  debase  the  stand 
ard  and  to  accept  as  a  true  epigram  merely 
a  rhymed  pun  or  a  versified  anecdote.  Mr. 
Dodd  has  quoted,  from  the  preface  of  a 
collection  published  in  London  in  1735, 
a  protest  against  these  inexpressive  rhymes, 
which  hope  to  pass  themselves  off  for  epi 
grams:  "We  have  already  observed  what 
a  gay  conceit,  or  a  good  sentence,  will  some- 
107 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

times  serve  for  points:  but  what  else? 
Nothing  so  properly  as  what  can  truly  be 
called  wit;  no  jingle  of  words,  pun,  quibble, 
conundrum,  mixed  wit,  or  false  wit,  ought 
ever  to  be  used,  though  they  have  all  very 
often  appeared  in  this  kind  of  poetry." 

A  rhymed  pun,  it  is  true,  may  some 
times  have  a  certain  unexpected  felicity 
which  is  its  own  excuse  for  being.  Here 
is  a  couplet  by  an  American  rhymester — 
who  in  these  papers  must  remain  anony 
mous — on  the  'Danse  Macabre'  of  M. 
Saint-Saens : 

This  dance  of  death,  which  sounds  so  musically, 
Was  sure  intended  for  the  corpse  de  ballet. 

And  this  couplet  may  be  matched  by  a 
quatrain,  written  by  Mrs.  Lydia  Maria 
Child  a  half  century  earlier  when  a  young 
friend  of  hers  named  Nathaniel  Deering 
moved  his  residence  to  the  town  of  Canaan : 

Whoever  weds  the  young  lawyer  at  C. 

Will  surely  have  prospects  most  cheering, 
For  what  must  his  person  and  intellect  be, 

When  even  his  name  is  "N.  Deering?" 
108 


AMERICAN    EPIGRAMS 

Even  the  versified  anecdote  may  attain 
the  requisite  pithiness  of  the  true  epigram 
as  we  now  understand  the  term;  and  per 
haps  as  good  an  example  as  any  that  might 
be  chosen  is  John  Boyle  O'Reilly's  on  the 
'Lure' : 

"What  bait  do  you  use,"  said  a  saint  to  the  devil, 

"When  you  fish  where  the  souls  of  men  abound?" 
"Well,  for  special  tastes,"  said  the  king  of  evil, 

"Gold  and  fame  are  the  best  I've  found." 
"But  for  general  use?"  asked  the  saint.    "Ah,  then," 
Said  the  demon,  "I  angle  for  man,  not  men, 
And  a  thing  I  hate, 
Is  to  change  my  bait, 
So  I  fish  with  a  woman  the  whole  year  round." 

But  the  mere  pun  in  rhyme  and  the  bare 
anecdote  in  verse,  frequent  as  they  both 
are,  belong  to  an  inferior  order  of  effort. 
The  true  epigram  is  not  often  based  on  a 
pun,  which  has  been  called  the  lowest  form 
of  wit — because,  as  a  punster  explained, 
it  is  the  foundation  of  all  wit.  And  the 
true  epigram  does  not  need  to  be  sustained 
by  a  story.  The  true  epigram  indeed  re 
lies  on  its  own  wit  and  it  flies  aloft  on  the 
109 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

twin  wings  of  buoyancy  and  brilliancy — 
and  here  is  its  close  resemblance  to  familiar 
verse,  as  Cowper  called  it,  to  vers  de 
societe,  as  it  is  more  often  entitled. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  Mr.  Dodd's 
collection  of  epigrams,  which  he  sought  to 
make  as  comprehensive  as  possible  and 
which  must  contain  two  or  three  thousand 
specimens  from  almost  every  literature 
ancient  and  modern,  does  not  include  a 
single  example  by  an  American  author. 
And  it  is  almost  equally  curious  that  no 
American  editor  has  as  yet  attempted  to 
gather  together  an  adequate  representation 
of  the  epigrams  of  American  authorship. 
This  species  of  poetry  seems  to  call  for 
wit  rather  than  humor;  and  the  American 
gift  is  rather  for  humor  than  for  wit.  And 
yet  there  is  no  lack  of  epigrams  of  Amer 
ican  authorship,  of  varying  merit,  no  doubt, 
but  permitting  a  selection  not  unworthy 
of  comparison  with  what  has  been  done 
of  late  years,  either  by  our  kin  across  the 
sea  in  Great  Britain,  or  by  the  satiric  poets 
no 


AMERICAN    EPIGRAMS 

of  France.  Many  of  the  turning  points 
of  American  history  have  found  record 
in  the  couplets  and  quatrains  of  the  Ameri 
can  epigrammatists. 

For  example,  it  happened  that  the  motto 
on  the  colors  of  the  Hessians  who  were 
defeated  at  Trenton  was  Nescit  Pericula, 
and  as  their  behavior  on  this  occasion  was 
not  over-valiant,  an  American  carelessly 
rhymed  this  uncomplimentary  quatrain: 

The  man  who  submits  without  striking  a  blow, 
May  be  said  in  a  sense  no  danger  to  know : 
I  pray  then,  what  harm,  by  the  humble  submission, 
At  Trenton  was  done  by  the  standard  of  Hessian. 

Another  Revolutionary  epigram  was 
probably  written  by  David  Edwards  not 
long  after  the  event  it  commemorates, 
Burgoyne's  surrender : 

Burgoyne,  alas,  unknowing  future  fates, 
Could  force  his  way  through  woods,  but  not  through 
Gates. 

The  neatness  of  the  pun  was  probably 
appreciated  by  the  debonair  British  gen- 

IZI 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

eral  whose  own  wit  was  displayed  in  the 
comedy  of  the  'Heiress/  which  held  the 
stage  for  several  years  in  England.  It 
was  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne  which  en 
couraged  the  French  to  come  to  our  aid; 
and  it  was  the  French  alliance  which 
brought  more  swiftly  the  independence  of 
this  country  and  the  establishment  of  a 
stable  government  on  the  basis  of  human 
equality.  The  most  important  implement 
of  any  such  government  must  be  the  ballot  ; 
and  no  one  attempting  to  collect  the  most 
striking  of  American  epigrams  could  afford 
to  omit  the  quatrain  of  the  Reverend  John 
Pierpont  on  the  'Ballot' : 

A  weapon  that  comes  down  as  still 
As  snowflakes  fall  upon  the  sod; 

But  executes  a  freeman's  will, 

As  lightning  does  the  will  of  God. 

The  Civil  War  brought  forth  a  fruitage 
of  epigrams  as  abundant  as  that  of  the 
Revolution;  and  of  these  one  of  the  earli 
est  was  written  when  Admiral  Foote  was 
engaged  in  clearing  the  Mississippi: 


AMERICAN   EPIGRAMS 

The  rebels  say,  in  boasting  way, 
They'll  every  inch  of  ground  dispute; 

A  brag,  indeed,  we'll  better  heed 
Whenever  they  withstand  one  Foote. 

The  mock  epitaph  has  always  been  a 
favorite  form  of  epigram,  and  sometimes 
a  real  epitaph  may  have  an  epigrammatic 
flavor.  When  the  Union  troops  withdrew 
after  one  of  the  battles  in  front  of  Rich 
mond,  a  Confederate  soldier  is  said  to  have 
buried  a  dead  opponent  and  to  have  written 
on  a  shingle  stuck  at  the  head  of  the  grave 
these  rather  grewsome  lines: 

The  Yankee  hosts  with  blood-stained  hands 
Came  southward  to  divide  our  lands. 
This  narrow  and  contracted  spot 
Is  all  that  this  poor  Yankee  got. 

After  the  capture  of  the  President  of  the 
Confederacy,  Charles  G.  Halpine,  who  was 
better  known  as  uMiles  O'Reilly,"  put  into 
circulation  a  fragment  of  verse  which  he 
called  'An  Old  Maxim  Reversed* : 

Et  arma  cedunt  toga, 

Said  a  Roman  of  renown: 
When  the  din  of  war  is  over, 

Arms  yield  unto  the  gown. 

"3 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

But  this  motto  Jeff  reverses: 
For,  arrayed  in  female  charms, 

When  the  din  of  war  is  over, 
In  his  gown  he  yields  to  arms. 

After  the  war  came  the  dread  period 
of  Reconstruction,  followed  by  the  sorrow 
ful  days  of  brutal  ring  rule  in  New  York 
and  in  Boston.  It  was  probably  Tweed 
of  New  York,  whose  brazen  career  evoked 
from  Lowell  a  biting  couplet  on  the  'Boss' : 

Skilled  to  pull  wires,  he  baffles  Nature's  hope, 
Who  sure  intended  him  to  stretch  a  rope. 

And  it  was  probably  Butler  of  Massa 
chusetts  who  called  forth  a  scorching  qua 
train  which  Lowell  liked  enough  to  include 
in  his  latest  volume  of  verse,  and  which 
he  termed  a  'Misconception' : 

B.  taught  by  Pope  to  do  his  good  by  stealth, 
'Twixt  participle  and  noun  no  difference  feeling; 

In  office  placed  to  serve  the  Commonwealth, 
Does  himself  all  the  good  he  can  by  stealing. 

During  the  long  labors  of  the  American 
Copyright  League  to  secure  such  an  amend 
ment  to  our  laws  which  would  give  foreign 
114 


AMERICAN   EPIGRAMS 

authors  an  honest  reward  for  their  work 
while  relieving  American  writers  from  an 
enforced  competition  with  stolen  goods, 
Lowell  served  as  President,  and  he  lived 
only  a  few  months  after  the  law  went  into 
effect  which  he  had  helped  to  pass.  To 
aid  in  arousing  the  popular  conscience 
against  the  sin  of  literary  piracy  he  wrote 
an  epigram,  which  the  League  immediately 
took  for  its  motto: 

In  vain  we  call  old  notions  fudge, 
And  bend  our  conscience  to  our  dealing; 

The  ten  commandments  will  not  budge, 
And  stealing  will  continue  stealing. 

Another  epigram  of  Lowell's,  written  on 
his  sixty-eighth  birthday,  falls  within  the 
later  definition  of  the  epigram,  while  it 
lies  at  ease  also  within  the  earlier  definition, 
which  insists  rather  on  a  serenity  such  as 
we  look  for  in  a  Greek  inscription : 

As  life  runs  on,  the  road  grows  strange 
With  faces  new,  and  near  the  end 

The  milestones  into  headstones  change, 
'Neath  everyone  a  friend. 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

With  this  austere  quatrain  of  Lowell's 
may  be  contrasted  another  by  Emerson, 
written  originally  in  an  album  : 

The  man  who  has  a  thousand  friends 

Has  not  a  friend  to  spare; 
But  he  who  has  one  enemy 

Will  meet  him  everywhere. 

In  one  of  his  letters  Lowell  describes 
a  dull  dinner  in  London  with  a  dozen  and 
a  half  speakers  droning  away  till  long  after 
midnight,  the  only  brilliant  exception  being 
Sir  Frederick  Bramwell,  who  was  called 
upon  very  late  to  respond  to  Applied  Sci 
ence,  and  who  said  that  uat  this  time  of 
night  the  only  illustration  of  the  toast  I 
can  think  of  would  be  the  application  of 
the  domestic  safety-match  to  the  bed-room 
candle. "  Whereupon  Lowell  promptly 
handed  him  this  impromptu,  scribbled 
on  a  card: 

Oh,  brief  Sir  Frederick,  might  the  others  catch 
Your  happy  science, — and  supply  your  match  ! 

This  couplet  of  Lowell's  improvised  at 
116 


AMERICAN  EPIGRAMS 

a  dinner  may  be  followed  by  a  quatrain 
of  Longfellow's  improvised  in  an  inn- 
album.  At  the  Sign  of  the  Raven  in  Zurich 
Longfellow  was  overcharged  for  unsatis 
factory  accommodation ;  and  he  contributed 
to  the  landlord's  book  these  four  lines  of 
warning  to  other  travellers: 

Beware  of  the  Raven  of  Zurich, 

'Tis  a  bird  of  omen  ill, 
With  an  ugly,  unclean  nest 

And  a  very,  very  long  bill. 

Another   of   Longfellow's   playful   and 
careless  quatrains  has  also  been  preserved: 

When  you  ask  one  friend  to  dine, 
Give  him  your  best  wine ! 
When  you  ask  two, 
The  second  best  will  do  I 

It  is  to  Martial  that  we  can  trace  the 
turning  aside  of  the  epigram  from  senti 
ment  to  wit;  and  in  his  hands  the  epigram 
may  pierce  like  the  keenest  of  rapiers  or 
it  may  batter  like  a  brutal  bludgeon.  He 
is  willing  to  employ  either  weapon  against 
117 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

the  sex  he  was  at  once  pursuing  and  abus 
ing.  Woman,  indeed,  has  always  been  a 
shining  mark  for  the  hurtling  shafts  of 
the  epigrammatists  of  all  countries.  It  was 
Fitz  Greene  Halleck,  who  adapted  from 
Goethe  a  sarcastic  quatrain,  which  he 
called  'Honor  to  Woman' : 

All  honor  to  Woman,  the  Sweetheart,  the  Wife, 
The  delight  of  our  homesteads  by  night  and  by  day, 

The  darling  who  never  does  harm  in  her  life, — 
Except  when  determined  to  have  her  own  way. 

Several  of  the  epigrams  of  John  G.  Saxe 
are  directed  against  feminine  failings.  Just 
now,  when  so  many  women  affect  to  be 
mannish,  there  is  perhaps  a  certain  perti 
nence  in  the  pair  of  couplets  he  called 
a  'Dilemma' : 

"Whenever  I   marry,"   says  masculine  Ann, 
"I  must  really  insist  upon  wedding  a  man !" 
But  what  if  the  man  (for  men  are  but  human) 
Should  be  equally  nice  about  wedding  a  woman? 

Another  of  Saxe's  is  rather  a  rhymed 
retort  than  a  true  epigram;  and  it  has  the 
118 


AMERICAN   EPIGRAMS 

further  disadvantage  of  recalling  a  little 
too  closely  one  of  the  cleverest  repartees 
in  the  'School  for  Scandal/  Yet  it  is  so 
neatly  turned  that  it  deserves  quotation 
here.  It  is  called  'Too  Candid  by  Half : 

As  Tom  and  his  wife  were  discoursing  one  day 
Of  their  several  faults  in  a  bantering  way, 

Said  she:  "Though  my  wit  you  disparage, 
I'm  sure,  my  dear  husband,  our  friends  will  attest 
This  much,  at  the  least,  that  my  judgment  is  best." 

Quoth  Tom,  "So  they  said  at  our  marriage." 

One  of  the  most  striking  epigrams  about 
women  was  written  by  a  woman — the  late 
Anne  Reeve  Aldrich,  who  gave  her  lines  the 
enigmatic  title,  'Suppose' : 

How  sad  if,  by  some  strange  new  law, 

All  kisses  scarred ! 
For  she  who  is  most  beautiful 

Would  be  most  marred. 
And  we  might  be  surprised  to  see 

Some  lovely  wife 
Smooth-visaged,  while  a  seeming  prude 

Was  marked  for  life. 

Another  woman,  Miss  Mary  Ainge  De 
119 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Vere,  has  put  a  certain  feminine  subtlety 
into  her  'Friend  and  Lover' : 

When    Psyche's    friend   becomes   her  lover, 
How  sweetly  these  conditions  blend ! 

But,  oh,  what  anguish  to  discovef 
Her  lover  has  become — her  friend ! 

But  it  was  a  man,  Mr.  Gordon  Campbell, 
who  phrased  an  opinion  more  masculine 
in  the  quatrain  which  he  termed  'My  Idol' : 

My  idol  fell  down  and  was  utterly  broken, 

The  fragments  of  stone  lay  all  scattered  apart; 
And  I  picked  up  the  hardest  to  keep  as  a  token — 

Her  heart. 

It  was  a  man  again,  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells, 
who  wrote  this  quatrain  on  4A  Sarcastic 
Woman1 : 

Her  mouth  is  a  honey-blossom, 
No  doubt,  as  the  poet  sings ; 

But  within  her  lips,  the  petals, 
Lurks  a  cruel  bee,  that  stings. 

And  another  man,  the  sculptor-poet,  W. 
W.  Story,  rhymed  these  lines  on  Tersica' : 

Oh,  Persica,  Persica,  pale  and  fair, 
With  a  ripe  blush  on  your  cheek, 

How  pretty — how  very  pretty  you  are, 
Until  you  begin  to  speak ! 
1 20 


AMERICAN   EPIGRAMS 

As  for  a  heart  and  soul,  my  dear, 
You  have  not  enough  to  sin ; 

Outside  so  fair,  like  a  peach  you  are, 
With  a  stone  for  a  heart  within. 

And  it  was  a  third  man,  Mr.  George 
Birdseye,  who  ventured  upon  the  attempt 
to  elucidate  the  wiles  of  a  'Coquette': 

Her  pleasure  is  in  lovers  coy; 

When  hers,  she  gives  them  not  a  thought; 
But,  like  the  angler,  takes  more  joy 

In  fishing  than  in  fishes  caught. 

The  same  title  served  Mr.  Thomas 
Bailey  Aldrich  for  a  most  pungent  and 
imaginative  accusation  against  a  type  of 
woman  not  unfeminine : 

Or  light  or  dark,  or  short  or  tall, 
She  sets  a  spring  to  snare  them  all ; 
All's  one  to  her; — above  her  fan 
She'd  make  sweet  eyes  at  Caliban. 

And  to  Mr.  Walter  Learned  we  are 
indebted  for  one  of  the  pleasantest  of  the 
many  glancing  shafts  which  have  enlivened 
the  merry  war  between  the  sexes.  He  has 
chosen  to  call  it  'Humility': 

131 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

You  say,  when  I  kissed  you,  you  are  sure  I  must  quite 
Have  forgotten  myself.     So  I  did ;  you  are  right. 
No,  I'm  not  such  an  egotist,  dear,  it  is  true, 
As  to  think  of  myself  when  I'm  looking  at  you. 

The  relation  between  literature  and  life 
is  so  close  that  there  is  no  need  to  discuss 
which  of  these  it  was  Mr.  Aldrich  had  in 
mind  when  he  penned  his  quatrain  on 
'Masks': 

Black  Tragedy  lets  slip  her  grim  disguise 

And  shows  you  laughing  lips  and  roguish  eyes ; 

But  when,  unmasked,  gay  Comedy  appears, 

How   wan   her  cheeks   are,   and  what  heavy  tears ! 

But  it  is  easy  to  guess  that  it  was  the 
rude  but  powerful  poems  of  Walt  Whit 
man  that  Mr.  Aldrich  was  criticizing  when 
he  wrote  his  lines,  4On  Reading — ' 

Great  thoughts  in  crude,  unshapely  verse  set  forth 
Lose  half  their  preciousness  and  ever  must. 
Unless  the  diamond  with  its  own  rich  dust 

Be  cut  and  polished,  it  seems  little  worth. 

Indeed,  authors  have  taken  each  other 
for  the  targets  of  their  satire  quite  as  fre 
quently  as  they  have  chosen  to  gird  at  the 
122 


AMERICAN    EPIGRAMS 

other  sex.  Mr.  Richard  Watson  Gilder 
packed  his  scorn  of  an  empty  rhymester  into 
a  terse  quatrain,  which  he  entitled  'Wanted, 
A  Theme': 

"Give  me  a  theme,"  the  little  poet  cried — 

"And  I  will  do  my  part." 
"  'Tis  not  a  theme  you  need,"   the   world   replied ; 

"You  need  a  heart." 

And  the  same  lyrist  gave  another  turn 
to  almost  the  same  thought  in  the  cutting 
lines  of  his  'Strephon  and  Sardon' : 

"Young  Strephon  wears  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve," 
Thus  Sardon  spoke,  with  scoffing  air ; 

Perhaps  'twas  envy  made  the  gray-beard  grieve — 
For  Sardon  never  had  a  heart  to  wear. 

Mr.  J.  T.  Trowbridge  in  his  autobiogra 
phy  preserves  for  us  the  six  lines  of  rhyme 
evoked  from  him  by  the  short-range  con 
templation  of  the  curious  characteristics  of 
Bronson  Alcott: 

Do  you  care  to  meet  Alcott?    His  mind  is  a  mirror, 
Reflecting  the  unspoken  thought  of  his  hearer : 
To  the  great  he  is  great ;  to  the  fool  he's  a  fool : 
In  the  world's  dreary  desert  a  crystalline  pool, 
Where  a  lion  looks  in  and  a  lion  appears; 
But  an  ass  will  see  only  his  own  ass's  ears. 
123 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

When  water  was  first  brought  into  Boston 
there  was  much  discussion  as  to  the  health- 
fulness  of  the  conduits  through  which  it 
was  conveyed ;  and  this  evoked  from  Long 
fellow  these  pungent  rhymes: 

Cochituate  water,  it  is  said, 
Though  introduced  in  pipes  of  lead, 

Will  not  prove  deleterious; 
But  if  the  stream  of  Helicon 
Through  leaden  pipes  is  made  to  run, 

The  effect  is  very  serious. 

An  undergraduate  rhymester  of  Colum 
bia,  Mr.  Russell  H.  Loines,  has  voiced  a 
feeling  which  many  another  reader  of 
ephemeral  verse  will  swiftly  recognize.  He 
was  writing  'On  a  Magazine  Sonnet': 

"Scorn  not  the  sonnet,"  though  its  strength  be  sapped* 
Nor  say  malignant  its  inventor  blundered ; 

The  corpse  that  here  in  fourteen  lines  is  wrapped 
Had  otherwise  been  covered  with  a  hundred. 

Mr.  Stedman  has  told  us  that  no  other 
American  poets  have  been  so  frequently 
discussed  in  print  as  Whitman  and  Poe. 
Mr.  Aldrich's  epigram,  which  we  may 
assume  to  have  Whitman  for  its  theme, 
124 


AMERICAN    EPIGRAMS 

has  already  been  quoted ;  and  there  are  not 
a  few  epigrams  on  Poe,  although  no  one 
of  them  rivals  the  polish  and  the  point  of 
Mr.  Aldrich's.  There  is,  however,  one 
worthy  of  quotation,  one  launched  by 
Father  Tabb  against  Toe's  Critics': 

A  certain  tyrant,  to  disgrace 
The  more  a  rebel's  resting  place, 
Compelled  the  people  every  one 
To  hurl,  in  passing  there,  a  stone, 
Which  done,  behold,  the  pile  became 
A  monument  to  keep  the  name. 

And  thus  it  is  with  Edgar  Poe; 
Each  passing  critic  has  his  throw, 
Nor  sees,  defeating  his  intent, 
How  lofty  grows  the  monument. 

Another  there  is,  not  against  Poe  or 
against  his  critics  either,  but  having  as  its 
theme  a  pretentious  biography  of  the  Amer 
ican  poet  by  a  British  writer: 

An  Englishman,  Ingram,  has  written  Poe's  life; 

We  recall,  as  we  slowly  toil  through  it, 
How  keenly  Poe  wielded  the  critical  knife, 

And  we  wish  he  were  here  to  review  it. 

Not  quite  so  concise,  and  rather  more 
125 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

vigorous  in  expression,  are  a  dozen  lines 
by  the  late  Richard  Henry  Stoddard,  in 
which  he  dwelt  on  the  widespread  success 
of  the  author  of  'Proverbial  Philosophy' : 

Hail  to  Martin  Farquhar  Tupper! 
Who,  when  he  bestrides  the  crupper 
Of  Pegasus,  gets  the  upper 
Hand  of  poets  more  renowned ; 
Everywhere  his  works  are  found, 
In  poor  men's  huts,  rich  men's  pavilions, 
Sold  by  thousands,  sold  by  millions ; 
Suited  to  all  times  and  latitudes, 
By  the  everlasting  platitudes 
Spread  for  breakfast,  dinner,  supper, 
Hail  to  Martin  Farquhar  Tupper! 

When  a  contributor  to  a  long-forgotten 
literary  weekly,  the  Round  Table,  chanced 
to  refer  disparagingly  to  a  certain  essay  by 
Richard  Grant  White,  that  lively  but  sensi 
tive  essayist  retorted  at  once  with  these 
brisk  couplets: 

Some  knight  of  King  Arthur's,  Sir  Void  or  Sir  Null, 
Swears  a  trifle  I  wrote  is  respectably  dull. 
He  is  honest  for  once  through  his  weakness  of  wit, 
And  he  censures  a  fault  that  he  does  not  commit; 
For  he  shows  by  example — proof  quite  unrejectable — 
That  a  man  may  be  dull  without  being  respectable. 
126 


AMERICAN   EPIGRAMS 

During  one  of  the  more  heated  periods 
of  the  absurd  and  unending  discussion  of 
the  foolish  suggestion  that  the  plays  of 
Shakspere  were  in  reality  written  by  Bacon, 
the  late  T.  W.  Parsons,  best  known  as  a 
devout  student  of  Dante,  ventured  into  the 
arena  with  these  convincing  lines : 

Shakspere !  whoever  thou  mayst  prove  to  be, 

God  save  the  Bacon  that  men  find  in  thee ! 

If  that  philosopher,  though  bright  and  wise, 

Those  lofty  labors  did  in  truth  devise, 

Then  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 

That  'Hamlet,'  'Lear/  'Macbeth/  and  each  great  play 

That  certifies  nobility  of  mind, 

Was  written  by  the  "meanest  of  mankind." 

And  to  this  must  be  adjoined  the  sug 
gestive  quatrain  of  Mr.  Aldrich,  which  he 
has  wittily  entitled  'Points  of  View': 

Bonnet  in  hand,  obsequious  and  discreet, 

The  butcher  that   served   Shakspere  with   his  meat 

Doubtless  esteemed  him  little,  as  a  man 

Who  knew  not  how  the  market  prices  ran. 

Another    admirable    quatrain    of    Mr. 
Aldrich's  expresses  his  wholesome  dissatis 
faction  with  the  bards  of  despair;  this  is 
127 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

the   epigram  which  he  terms  'Pessimistic 
Poets' : 

I  little  read  those  poets  who  have  made 
A  noble  art  a  pessimistic  trade, 
And  trained  their  Pegasus  to  draw  a  hearse 
Through  endless  avenues  of  drooping  verse. 

Books  as  well  as  belles  were  sometimes 
the  target  for  the  arrows  of  Saxe's  easy 
wit;  and  one  of  his  prettily-phrased  epi 
grams  is  entitled  'Lucas  a  non' : 

You'll  oft  find  in  books,  rather  ancient  than  recent, 

A  gap  in  the  page  marked  "cetera  desunt," 

By  which  you  may  commonly  take   it   for  granted 

The  passage  is  wanting — without  being  wanted ; 

And  may  borrow,  besides  a  significant  hint 

That  desunt  means  simply  not  decent  to  print. 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  was  ever  a  facile 
and  felicitous  writer  of  occasional  verse; 
and  he  was  a  master  of  vers  de  societe  with 
its  subtly  blended  sentiment  and  humor ;  but 
he  was  rarely  willing  to  limit  himself  within 
the  narrow  boundaries  of  the  epigram. 
Indeed,  there  is  apparently  only  one  of  his 
shorter  poems  which  falls  fairly  within  the 
128 


AMERICAN    EPIGRAMS 

definition.  This  is  the  amusing  example  of 
fanciful  imagination  which  he  chose  to  call 
'Cacoethes  Scribendi' : 

If  all  the  trees  in  all  the  woods  were  men; 

And  each  and  every  blade  of  grass  a  pen; 

If  every  leaf  on  every  shrub  and  tree 

Turned  to  a  sheet  of  foolscap ;  every  sea 

Were  changed  to  ink,  and  all  the  earth's  living  tribes 

Had  nothing  else  to  do  but  act  as  scribes, 

And  for  ten  thousand  ages,  day  and  night, 

The  human  race  should  write,  and  write  and  write, 

Till  all  the  pens  and  paper  were  used  up, 

And  the  huge  inkstand  was  an  empty  cup, 

Still  would  the  scribblers  clustered  round  its  brink 

Call  for  more  pens,  more  paper,  and  more  ink. 

There  are  many  epigrammatic  stanzas 
scattered  through  Holmes's  occasional 
verses;  but  this  is  perhaps  the  only  speci 
men  of  his  effort  in  the  briefer  form  with 
the  severe  unity  of  theme  which  the  true 
epigram  insists  upon.  Of  the  American 
poets  the  two  who  are  easily  masters  of 
this  form  are  Lowell  and  Mr.  Aldrich, 
the  former  having  a  bold  vigor  of  his 
own  and  the  latter  preferring  rather  an 
ingenious  delicacy. 
(1903).  129 


VII 
A  NOTE  ON  THE  QUATRAIN 

ONE  of  the  most  stimulating  con 
tributions  which  M.  Brunetiere 
has  made  to  criticism  is  his  sug 
gestion  that  each  of  the  several 
kinds  of  poetry  responds  to  a  different  de 
mand  of  the  human  soul;  and  that  therefore 
— since  these  demands  are  eternal — when 
ever  we  find  any  special  kind  of  poetry 
apparently    absent     from     any    particular 
period  in  any  literature,  we  are  likely  then 
to  find  it  in  illegitimate  combination  with 
one  of  the  other  kinds.  If,  for  example,  the 
pure  lyric  is  not  visible  in  French  literature 
at  a  given  moment,  we  may  discover  that 
either  the  dramatic  or  the  epic  poetry  of 
France   just   then    happens   to   be    unduly 
lyric.  If,  to  take  another  example,  we  per 
ceive  that  the  drama  is  not  flourishing  in 
English  literature  during  a  certain  epoch, 
130 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  QUATRAIN 

we  are  warranted  in  searching  for  an  ex 
pansion  of  the  dramatic  element  in  the 
epic  of  that  epoch — the  epic  being  held 
to  include  its  prose  brother,  the  novel. 

There  were  nine  Muses  in  Greece  of  old, 
and  to  every  one  is  committed  the  guardian 
ship  of  a  single  art;  and  if  any  of  them 
may  chance  to  be  faint  and  weary,  one  of 
her  sisters  is  ever  ready  to  take  up  her 
burden  and  to  bear  it  for  her  until  her 
strength  returns.  The  arts  came  into  being 
to  satisfy  the  needs  of  man ;  and  the  needs 
of  man  vary  only  a  little  with  the  lapse  of 
the  years.  Every  one  who  has  ever  had 
occasion  to  compare  the  literatures  of  the 
ancients  with  the  literatures  of  the  moderns, 
must  gladly  have  noted  now  and  again  the 
serene  and  Attic  simplicity  of  some  latter- 
day  achievements  and  must  have  remarked 
once  more  the  eternal  and  surprising  fresh 
ness  of  some  masterpiece  of  antiquity. 

One  of  the  precious  treasures  which  we 
have  happily  inherited  from  the  past  is  the 
collection  which  is  known  as  the  'Greek 
131 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Anthology,'  and  which  contained  the  lesser, 
rather  than  the  larger,  of  the  lyrical  effu 
sions  of  that  race  of  poets  who  were  ever 
seeking  the  utmost  perfection  of  phrase 
and  the  utmost  purity  of  emotion.  They 
recall  to  us  not  the  mighty  art  of  the  Parthe 
non  frieze,  but  rather  the  graceful  and 
delicate  workmanship  of  the  Tanagra  fig 
urines.  They  may  sometimes  stretch  them 
selves  to  the  length  of  the  idyl,  but  more 
often  they  are  content  to  shrink  to  the  mod 
est  dimensions  of  the  epigram.  And  the 
epigram  of  the  Greeks  was  not  like  ours; 
it  was  not  a  neatly  turned  witticism  with  a 
snap  of  the  whip  at  the  end  of  it;  it  was 
rather  a  single,  simple  thought,  compressed 
into  a  few  lines,  ingenious  in  expression, 
and  exquisite  in  sentiment.  As  Lord  Neaves 
says,  the  "true  or  the  best  form  of  the 
early  Greek  epigram  does  not  aim  at  wit 
or  seek  to  produce  surprise;  its  purpose 
is  to  set  forth  in  the  shortest,  simplest,  plain 
est  language,  but  yet  with  perfect  purity 
and  even  elegance  of  diction,  some  fact  or 
132 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  QUATRAIN 

feeling  of  such  interest  as  would  prompt 
the  real  or  supposed  speaker  to  record  it." 
More  than  one  eulogist  of  the  'Greek 
Anthology'  has  bepraised  it  as  a  manifes 
tation  of  the  Greek  genius  without  any 
equivalent  in  modern  literature.  In  its 
own  special  field  it  may  be  without  any- 
equal  in  our  latter-day  poetry;  but  in  so 
far  as  we  are  men  like  the  Greeks  with 
emotions  akin  to  theirs,  it  is  not  likely  to 
be  wholly  without  any  equivalent.  Even 
though  no  modern  collection  exists  prop 
erly  to  be  compared  with  the  'Greek  An 
thology/  the  elements  of  such  a  collection 
must  be  scattered  here  and  there  awaiting 
the  pious  offices  of  a  devoted  collector. 
In  no  modern  literature  is  there  a  lack  of 
brief  lyrics,  wherein  the  singers  of  our  own 
time  have  voiced  their  sentiments,  simply 
and  effectively.  Although  our  modern  epi 
gram  is  not  the  epigram  of  the  Greeks,  none 
the  less  has  the  Greek  epigram  its  analogues 
in  our  literature,  even  if  we  do  not  know 
them  by  the  Greek  name.  The  'Days'  of 
133 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Emerson,  for  example,  and  his  'Letters,' 
and  his  'Forbearance'  are  worthy  of  the 
'Greek  Anthology'  so  far  as  their  simple 
elevation  is  concerned  and  the  felicity  of 
their  phrasing. 

It  is  true  that  the  Athenian  specimens 
of  star-dust  are  unrhymed;  and  that  ever 
since  the  Middle  Ages  we  have  more  often 
than  not  preferred  to  rhyme  our  lyrics. 
Ever  since  the  Renascence,  indeed,  we  have 
revealed  a  tendency  not  only  to  rhyme,  but 
to  arrange  our  rhymes  according  to  a  pat 
tern.  It  is  in  the  sonnet  that  the  poets  of 
the  past  four  centuries  have  been  wont  to 
express  those  uncomplicated  feelings  for 
which  the  Greeks  held  their  own  epigram 
to  be  sufficient.  The  Greek  had  found  his 
advantage  in  adopting  a  rather  rigid  metri 
cal  scheme  for  his  lesser  lyric;  and  we  mod 
erns  have  felt  a  like  aid  in  the  strict  struc 
ture  of  the  sonnet.  A  lyrist  is  at  once  re 
strained  and  sustained  by  a  fixed  form,  the 
framework  of  rhyme  making  the  task  easier 
than  it  seemed,  since  the  necessary  words 
134 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  QUATRAIN 

may  often  spur  the  lagging  fancy.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  limitations  of  the  rhyming 
scheme,  though  they  may  help  the  weak 
ling,  make  even  more  difficult  the  achieve 
ment  of  the  highest  perfection. 

The  modern  sonnet  has  thus  an  obvious 
analogy  to  the  brief  lyric  of  the  'Greek 
Anthology;'  and  it  seems  as  though  it  might 
have  also  occasionally  a  certain  relation  to 
the  Greek  ode — or  at  least  to  some  single 
member  of  that  ode.  Perhaps  it  may  be 
a  little  fanciful  to  suggest  that  if  Milton 
had  been  a  Greek,  born  before  the  sonnet 
had  been  devised  and  before  rhyme  had 
been  elaborated,  he  might  have  utilized  in 
an  ode  the  righteous  wrath  which  inspired 
the  noble  and  sonorous  sonnet  on  the  'Late 
Massacre  in  Piedmont' — "Avenge,  O  Lord, 
Thy  slaughtered  saints."  And  of  a  cer 
tainty  it  would  have  been  possible  for  Low 
ell  to  use  the  sonnet-form  for  his  imagina 
tive  interpretations  of  Washington  and 
of  Lincoln. 

There  is,  however,  another  modern  form 
135 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

which  would  demand  abundant  representa 
tion  in  any  attempt  to  prepare  a  latter-day 
equivalent  to  the  'Greek  Anthology.'  This 
is  the  quatrain,  which  many  a  modern 
lyrist,  more  especially  in  English,  has 
chosen  as  the  form  in  which  to  express  a 
thought  or  a  sentiment  not  rich  enough  for 
the  comparative  amplitude  of  the  sonnet. 
Just  as  the  sonnet  has  established  itself 
solidly  in  English  poetry,  while  the  other 
fixed  forms,  the  ballade  and  the  rondeau 
and  their  lesser  brethren,  are  scarcely  yet 
acclimated  amongst  us,  so  the  quatrain  has 
been  accepted,  while  the  sixain,  the  huitaln 
and  the  dixain — to  give  the  French  titles 
to  these  poems  of  a  single  stanza  of  six, 
and  eight,  and  ten  lines — have  tempted 
only  a  very  few  of  those  who  write  English. 
If  one  of  our  poets  cannot  say  what  he 
wants  to  say  in  four  lines,  he  is  likely  to 
say  it  in  fourteen.  If  what  he  has  to  say 
is  not  important  enough  for  the  ambitious 
fourteener,  he  is  likely  to  strive  to  condense 
it  into  the  single  stanza  of  four  lines. 
136 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  QUATRAIN 

The  sonnet  has  been  discussed  and  ana 
lyzed  and  belauded;  but  the  quatrain  has 
never  received  its  due  recognition.  It  has 
made  its  way  without  loud  heralding — such 
as  accompanied  the  revival  of  the  ballade, 
for  instance.  It  has  won  its  wide  popularity 
modestly  and  by  dint  of  merit  alone.  Poets 
have  made  use  of  it  apparently  without 
thinking  of  it  as  a  fixed  form — if,  indeed, 
it  can  fairly  be  so  entitled.  In  fact,  the 
sole  poet  who  seems  to  have  proclaimed 
its  worth  is  Mr.  Frank  Dempster  Sherman, 
who  used  the  form  itself  to  sing  its  own 
praise : 

Hark  at  the  lips  of  this  pink  whorl  of  shell 
And  you  shall  hear  the  ocean's  surge  and  roar; 

So  in  the  quatrain's  measure,  written  well, 
A  thousand  lines  shall  all  be  sung  in  four! 

As  the  Greek  epigram  served  for  votive 
tables  so  the  quatrain  has  been  chosen  by 
several  American  poets  for  memorial  in 
scriptions  wherein  a  lapidary  concision  was 
needful.  For  the  beautiful  windows  put 
up  in  St.  Margaret's,  Westminster,  in  mem- 
137 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

ory  of  Raleigh  and  of  Milton,  the  inscrip 
tions  were  written  by  Lowell  and  Whittier. 
Here  is  Lowell's  quatrain  on  Raleigh : 

The  New  World's  Sons,  from  England's  breast  we 
drew 

Such  milk  as  bids  remember  whence  we  came; 
Proud  of  her  Past  from  which  our  Present  grew, 

This  window  we  erect  to  Raleigh's  name. 

And  here  is  Whittier's  on  Milton : 

The  New  World  honors  him  whose  lofty  plea 

For  England's  freedom  made  her  own  more  sure, 

Whose  song,  immortal  as  its  theme,  shall  be 
Their  common  freehold  while  both  worlds  endure. 

Whittier  wrote  another  quatrain  for  the 
memorial  tablet  to  Mrs.  Sigourney,  in 
Christ  Church,  Hartford: 

She  sang  alone,  ere  womanhood  had  known 
The  gift  of  song  which  fills  the  air  today : 

Tender  and  sweet,  a  music  all  her  own 
May  fitly  linger  where  she  knelt  to  pray. 

And  Lowell  has  preserved  in  the  latest 
volume  of  his  poems  the  inscription  he  had 
prepared  for  a  soldiers'  and  sailors'  monu 
ment  in  Boston : 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  QUATRAIN 

To  those  who  died  for  her  on  land  and  sea, 
That  she  might  have  a  country  great  and  free, 
Boston  builds  this:  build  ye  her  monument 
In  lives  like  theirs,  at  duty's  summons  spent. 

This  has  not  a  little  of  the  stately  eleva 
tion  we  admire  in  the  best  inscriptions  of 
the  'Greek  Anthology.'  But  Lowell  used 
the  quatrain  not  only  to  honor  the  dead 
but  also  to  carry  a  greeting  of  affection  to 
the  living.  On  the  seventy-fifth  birthday 
of  Asa  Gray,  the  foremost  of  American 
botanists  received  congratulations  from  all 
parts  of  the  country ;  and  among  them  were 
these  four  lines  from  Lowell: 

Just  fate,   prolong  his   file,   well   spent, 

Whose  indefatigable  hours 
Have  been  as  gayly  innocent 

And  fragrant  as  his  flowers. 

Lowell,  indeed,  not  only  sent  a  quatrain 
as  an  appropriate  salutation,  but  he  also 
received  one  on  his  own  birthday  from  a 
younger  poet,  Mr.  Richard  Watson  Gilder: 

Navies  nor  armies  can  exalt  the  state, — 
Millions  of  men,  nor  coined  wealth  untold : 
Down  to  the  pit  may  sink  a  land  of  gold; 

But  one  great  name  can  make  a  country  great 
139 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

The  same  lyrist  has  chosen  the  quatrain 
also  to  contain  his  praise  of  the  'Washing 
ton  Monument,  at  Washington,  D.  C.' : 

Straight  soars  to  heaven  the  white  magnificence, — 
Free  as  man's  thought,  high  as  one  lonely  name. 

True  image  of  his  soul, — serene,  immense, — 
Mightiest  of  monuments  and  mightiest  fame. 

It  was  to  a  still  younger  American  poet, 
H.  C.  Bunner — whose  life  was  cut  short 
almost  in  his  youth — that  we  owe  another 
To  a  Hyacinth  Plucked  for  Decoration 
Day/  which  has  not  a  little  of  the  Attic 
fragrance  and  felicity : 

O  Flower,  plucked  before  the  dew 
Could  wet  thy  thirsty  petals  blue- 
Grieve  not !  a  dearer  dew  for  thee 
Shall  be  the  tears  of  memory. 

Another  of  Bunner's  quatrains  deals  also 
with  death;  this  is  the  vigorous  address 
To  a  Dead  Woman' : 

Not  a  kiss  in  life ;  but  one  kiss,  at  life's  end, 

I  have  set  on  the  face  of  Death  in  trust  for  thee. 
Through  long  years  keep  it  fresh  on  thy  lips,  O 

friend ! 

At  the  gate  of  Silence  give  it  back  to  me. 
140 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  QUATRAIN 

To  many  careless  readers  Bunner's  name 
is  known  only  as  that  of  a  humorist;  but 
he  had  also  the  sentiment  and  the  pathos 
which  are  ever  characteristics  of  the  true 
humorist,  who  is  more  than  a  manufacturer 
of  inexpensive  jests.  An  earlier  writer  of 
light  verse,  George  Arnold,  had  also  his 
more  serious  side,  which  never  found 
deeper  expression  than  in  his  quatrain  called 
'An  Autobiography' : 

I  was  born  some  time  ago,  but  I  know  not  why: 
I  have  lived, — I  hardly  know  either  how  or  where : 

Some  time  or  another,  I  suppose,  I  shall  die ; 
But  where,  how  or  when,  I  neither  know  nor  care ! 

Here,  after  this  vain  vaunting,  it  may 
be  well  to  place  another  of  Lowell's  qua 
trains,  one  of  the  little  group  which  he 
entitled  'Sayings' : 

In  life's  small  things  be  resolute  and  great 

To  keep  thy  muscles  trained;   know'st  thou   when 

Fate 

Thy  measure  takes,  or  when  she'll  say  to  thee, 
"I  find  thee  worthy;  do  this  deed  for  me?" 

To  places  opportunity  may  come,  as  well 
141 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

as  to  persons,  as  Mr.  M.  A.  De  Wolfe 
Howe  has  suggested  in  his  'Distinction': 

The  village  sleeps,  a  name  unknown,  till  men 

With   life-blood   stain   its   soil,    and   pay   the   due 

That  lifts  it  to  eternal  fame,— for  then 
'Tis  grown  a  Gettysburg  or  Waterloo. 

With  this  may  be  linked  another  sug 
gestive  quatrain,  by  Mr.  Selden  L.  Whit- 
comb,  on  Tain': 

It  changed    the    soul  of  one  to  sour 

And  passionate  regret ; 
To  one  it  gave  unselfish  power 

To  love  and  to  forget. 

It  was  to  one  of  the  undergraduate  pub 
lications  of  Columbia  University  that  this 
was  contributed;  and  from  the  same 
monthly  may  be  taken  two  other  qua 
trains,  dealing  each  of  them  with  one  of 
these  names  which  it  is  well  for  the  young 
to  learn  to  love.  The  first  is  by  Mr.  Walter 
G.  Kellogg: 

If  the  gods  would  grant  some  favor  to  my  Muse, 
And  let  me  sound  a  sweet  yet  potent  note, 

This  boon  above  all  others  would  I  choose, 
That  I  might  write  as  dear  old  Herrick  wrote. 
142 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  QUATRAIN 

And  the  second  is  from  the  pen  of  a 
scholar-poet,  still  connected  with  Columbia, 
Mr.  Joel  E.  Spingarn.  It  has  for  its  theme 
the  English  lyrist,  who  perhaps  appeals 
most  ardently  to  all  youthful  lovers  of 
poetry — Keats : 

The  Star  of  Fame  shines  down  upon  the  river, 

And   answering   the    Stream   of   Life   repeats: 
"Upon  our  waters  shall  be  writ  forever 
The  name  of  Keats." 

In  a  collection  of  'Yale  Verse'  may  be 
found  a  suggestive  quatrain  by  Mr.  Walter 
D.  Makepeace,  on  a  subject  that  has 
tempted  not  a  few  poets,  'Sleep' : 

Down  through  the  mist  of  half-forgotten  things 
Tired  spirits  sink  beneath  night's  slumberous  sea, 

And,  lapped  in  dream-waves,  hear  soft  murmurings 
Of  Life's  blest  prelude  to  Eternity. 

No  American  poet  has  shown  a  more 
frequent  preference  for  the  quatrain  than 
Mr.  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  and  no  one 
has  better  understood  at  once  its  possibili 
ties  and  its  limitations.  He  has  unerring 
certainty  of  touch;  and  he  never  makes 
the  mistake  of  distending  into  a  sonnet  a 
143 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

thought  that  would  be  better  compacted 
into  a  quatrain.  Consider,  for  example, 
how  graceful  and  how  charming  are  the 
four  lines  which  he  has  called  'Memories': 

Two  things  there  are  with  Memory  will  abide, 
Whatever  else  befall,  while  life  flows  by: 

That  soft  cold  hand-touch  at  the  altar  side; 
The  thrill  that  shook  you  at  your  child's  first  cry. 

And  contrast  that  quatrain  with  this, 
which  he  has  aptly  entitled  'Pessimist  and 
Optimist' : 

This  one  sits  shivering  in  Fortune's  smile, 
Taking  his  joy  with  bated,  doubtful  breath: 

This  other,  gnawed  by  hunger,  all  the  while 
Laughs  in  the  teeth  of  Death. 

Other  American  poets  there  are  who 
have  delighted  in  the  quatrain;  and  three 
further  quotations  may  be  adduced  to  bring 
out  even  more  clearly  the  advantage  of 
the  condensed  form.  One  is  by  Mr.  Walter 
Learned,  and  he  calls  it  'Burning  the  Love- 
Letters'  : 

Ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust, 
When  life  has  quit  the  mortal  frame. 

When  Love  is  at  his  last,  we  must 
Bury  him  thus,  with  flame  to  flame. 
144 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  QUATRAIN 

The  second  is  by  Mr.  Edwin  Markham, 
who  has  taken  for  his  theme,  'Poetry' : 

She  comes  like  the  hush  and  beauty  of  the  night, 

And  sees  too  deep  for  laughter; 
Her  touch  is  a  vibration  and  a  light 

From  worlds  before  and  after. 

And  the  third  is  due  to  Mr.  William 
H.  Hayne,  who  was  moved  to  melody  by 
musing  'On  a  Bust  of  Mendelssohn' : 

His  high-arched  brow  and  quiet  eyelids  seem 
Brushed  by  the  wings  of  some  celestial  dream — 
A  bird  of  passage  whose  melodious  breath 
Dispersed  in  music  the  wan  mist  of  Death. 

In  this  attempt  to  draw  attention  to 
the  quatrain  as  a  definite  form,  excel 
lently  devised  for  the  expression  of  a 
lyric  emotion  not  ample  enough  for  the 
more  spacious  sonnet,  the  illustrations 
here  selected  have  all  been  taken  from 
our  own  American  poets,  partly  because 
the  quatrain  has  been  cherished  rather 
more  by  our  native  lyrists  than  by  their 
British  contemporaries,  and  also  partly  be 
cause  the  thoughts  they  have  to  express 
145 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

are  a  little  more  likely  to  appeal  to  us  than 
are  the  sentiments  voiced  by  our  kin  across 
the  sea,  who  are  at  once  so  like  us  and 
so  unlike  us.  Certain  of  the  Victorian 
poets  have  abundantly  employed  the  stern 
simplicity  of  the  quatrain — Mr.  William 
Watson,  for  one;  and  omission  must  not 
be  made  of  the  fact  that  in  St.  Margaret's, 
Westminster,  besides  the  two  windows 
adorned  with  the  commemorative  quatrains 
of  Lowell  and  of  Whittier,  are  two  others 
bearing  inscriptions  also  in  four  lines  each 
by  Tennyson  and  Browning. 
(1903). 


146 


VIII 
CAROLS    OF    COOKERY 

IN  one  of  the  preliminary  epistles  con 
tained  in  the  opening  pages  of  a 
poem  on  the  'Art  of  Cookery,'  pub 
lished  in  London  in  1709,  the  au 
thor  presents  historic  instances  to  support 
the  lofty  eminence  upon  which  he  estab 
lishes  the  art  he  is  going  immediately  to 
eulogize  in  several  hundred  heroic  couplets. 
"Indeed,  Cookery,"  so  he  declares  solemnly, 
"has  an  Influence  upon  Men's  Actions  even 
in   the   highest   Stations   of   human   Life. 
The  great  Philosopher  Pythagoras,  in  his 
'Golden  Verses,'  shews  himself  to  be  ex 
tremely  nice  in  Eating,  when  he  makes  it 
one  of  his  chief  Principles  of  Morality  to 
abstain  from  Beans.     The  noblest  Foun 
dations  of  Honour,  Justice  and  Integrity 
were  found  to  lye  hid  in  Turnips,  as  ap 
pears  in  that  great  Dictator,  Cincinnati**, 
147 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

who  went  from  the  Plough  to  the  Com 
mand  of  the  Roman  Army;  and  having 
brought  home  Victory,  retir'd  to  his  Cot 
tage  :  For  when  the  Samnite  Ambassadors 
came  thither  to  him,  with  a  large  Bribe, 
and  found  him  dressing  Turnips  for  his 
Repast,  they  immediately  return'd  with 
this  Sentence,  'That  it  was  impossible  to 
prevail  upon  him  that  could  be  contented 
with  such  a  Supper/  In  short,  there  are 
no  honorary  Appellations  but  what  may 
be  made  use  of  to  Cooks;  for  I  find  through 
out  the  whole  Reign  of  Charlemain,  that 
the  Great  Cook  of  the  Palace  was  one  of 
the  prime  Ministers  of  State,  and  Con 
ductor  of  Armies." 

This  metrical  'Art  of  Cookery'  is 
avowedly  modelled  upon  the  'Art  of 
Poetry'  of  Horace.  This  bard  of  the 
buttery,  this  lyrist  of  the  larder,  this  song 
ster  of  the  serving-room,  tells  us  that 

A  Prince  who  in  a  Forest  rides  astray, 
And  weary  to  some  Cottage  finds  the  way, 
Talks  of  no  Pyramids  of  Fowl  or  Bisks  of  Fish, 
148 


CAROLS  OF  COOKERY 

But  hungry  sups  his  Cream  serv'd  up  in  Earthen 

Dish: 

Quenches  his  Thirst  with  Ale  in  nut-brown  Bowls, 
And  takes  the  hasty  Rasher  from  the  Coals: 
Pleas'd  as  King  Henry  with  the  Miller  free, 
Who  thought  himself  as  good  a  Man  as  He. 

The  poet  is  abundant  in  advice,  and  he 
bids 

You  that  from  pliant  Paste  wou'd  Fabricks  raise, 
Expecting  thence  to  gain  immortal  Praise, 
Your  Knuckles  try,  and  let  your  Sinews  know 
Their  Power  to  knead,  and  give  the  Form  to  Dough, 
Chuse  your  Materials  right,  your  seas'ning  fix, 
And  with  your  Fruit  resplendent  Sugar  mix; 
From  thence  of  course  the  Figure  will  arise, 
And  Elegance  adorn  the  Surface  of  your  Pies. 

He  is  apt  in  axiom,  and  he  declares  that 

If  you  wou'd  have  me  merry  with  your  Cheer 
Be  so  yourself,  or  so  at  least  appear. 

And  he  asks  pertinently : 

Unless  some  Sweetness  at  the  Bottom  lye, 
Who  cares  for  all  the  crinkling  of  the  Pye? 

But  even  in  pastry  he  is  against  undue 
extravagance : 

Next  let  Discretion  moderate  your  Cost, 
And  when  you  treat,  three  Courses  be  the  most. 
149 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Let  never  fresh  Machines  your  Pastry  try, 

Unless  Grandees  or  Magistrates  are  by, 

Then  you  may  put  a  Dwarf  into  a  Pye. 

Or  if  you'd  fright  an  Alderman  and  Mayor, 

Within  a  Pasty  lodge  a  living  Hare; 

Then  midst  their    gravest    Furs  shall   Mirth    arise, 

And  all  the  Guild  pursue  with  joyful  Cries. 

Perhaps  the  most  characteristic  passage 
in  the  whole  poem  is  that  wherein  Horace 
himself  is  invoked,  and  wherein  the  like 
ness  of  the  poet  to  the  pastry-cook  is  for 
mally  established : 

Were  Horace,  that  great  Master,  now  alive, 

A  Feast  with  Wit  and  Judgment  he'd  contrive. 

As  thus — supposing  that  you  wou'd  rehearse 

A  labour'd  Work,  and  every  Dish  a  Verse. 

He'd  say,    mend    this,   and  t'other  Line,  and  this; 

If  after  Tryal  it  were  still  amiss, 

He'd  bid  you  give  it  a  new  Turn  of  Face, 

Or  set  some  Dish  more  curious  in  its  Place, 

If  you  persist  he  wou'd  not  strive  to  move 

A  Passion  so  delightful  as  Self-love. 

We  shou'd  submit  our  Treats  to  Criticks  View, 
And  ev'ry  prudent  Cook  shou'd  read  Bossu. 
Judgment  provides  the  Meat  in  Season  fit, 
Which  by  the  Genius  drest,  its  Sauce  is  wit. 
Good  Beef  for  Men,  Pudding  for  Youth  and  Age, 
Come  up  to  the  Decorum  of  the  Stage. 

ISO 


CAROLS  OF  COOKERY 

The  Critick  strikes  out  all  that  is  not  just, 
And  'tis  ev'n  so  the  Butler  chips  his  Crust. 
Poets  and  Pastry-Cooks  will  be  the  same, 
Since  both  of  them  their  Images  must  frame. 
Chimera's  form  the  Poet's  Fancy  show, 
The  Cook  contrives  his  Shapes  in  real  Dough. 

Thus  wrote  a  British  imitator  of  the 
Roman  songster  of  society  in  the  early 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century;  and  in  the 
later  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  an 
American  imitator  of  Horace,  the  late 
Eugene  Field,  seems  to  have  been  moved 
by  a  like  impulse.  Without  going  so  far 
as  to  identify  poet  and  pastry-cook,  he 
felt  called  upon  to  hymn  the  praise  of 
'Rare  Roast  Beef/  and  of  'Gosling  Stew1 
and  of  'Apple  Pie  and  Cheese/  Of  these 
three  lilting  lyrics,  each  with  a  culinary 
ecstasy  of  its  own,  the  third  is  by  far  the 
best  worth  quoting  here.  It  has  the  flavor 
of  New  England,  beyond  all  question;  it 
is  not  without  a  gusto  of  its  own;  and  the 
writer  evidently  revelled  in  his  adroit  alter 
nation  of  double  and  single  rhymes; — 
'Apple  Pie  and  Cheese' : 
151 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Full  many  a  sinful  notion 

Conceived  of  foreign  powers 
Has  come  across  the  ocean 

To  harm  this  land  of  ours ; 
And  heresies  called  fashions 

Have  modesty  effaced, 
And  baleful,  morbid  passions 

Corrupt  our  native  taste. 

0  tempora  !   O  mores  ! 
What  profanations  these 

That  seek  to  dim  the  glories 

Of  apple  pie  and  cheese ! 

****** 
De  gustibus,  'tis  stated, 

Non  disputandwn  est. 
Which  meaneth,  when  translated, 

That  all  is  for  the  best. 
So  let  the  foolish  choose  'em 

The  vapid  sweets  of  sin, 

1  will  not  disabuse  'em 

Of  the  heresy  they're  in; 
But  I,  when  I  undress  me 

Each  night,  upon  my  knees 
Will  ask  the  Lord  to  bless  me 

With  apple  pie  and  cheese! 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  the 
British  imitator  of  Horace  and  the  Ameri 
can  are  not  the  only  poets  who  have  spoken 
highly  of  the  doubtful  dish  which  the  one 

152 


CAROLS  OF  COOKERY 

spells  Pye  and  the  other  pie.  Emerson, 
a  loftier  man  than  either  of  the  others, 
beyond  all  question,  penned  no  ode  to 
pastry,  it  is  true;  what  he  had  to  say  in 
its  praise  was  said  in  prose,  no  doubt,  and 
yet  what  more  magnificent  eulogy  could 
he  have  bestowed  than  his  simple  query, 
addressed  to  those  who  sat  at  table  with 
him  and  who  had  rejected  his  proffer  of  a 
wedge  of  pie,  "But  what  is  pie  for?" 

And  Dr.  Holmes,  quoting  this  anec 
dote,  asks  permission  to  declare  uthat  pie, 
often  foolishly  abused,  is  a  good  creature, 
at  the  right  time  and  in  angles  of  thirty 
or  forty  degrees,"  although  "in  semicir 
cles  and  quadrants  it  may  sometimes  prove 
too  much  for  delicate  stomachs." 

One  of  the  writers  who  contributed  to 
the  'Liber  Scriptorum,'  the  Book  of  the 
Authors  Club  of  New  York,  has  therein 
ventured  an  explanation  of  the  strange 
anomaly  to  which  Dr.  Holmes  draws  at 
tention,  that  Emerson,  an  abandoned  pie- 
eater  as  he  was,  never  complained  of  dys- 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

pepsia,  whereas  Carlyle,  although  he  was 
fed  on  the  wholesome  oatmeal  of  his  na 
tive  land,  was  forever  at  war  with  his 
stomach  and  "lived  with  half  his  self-con 
sciousness  habitually  centred  beneath  his 
diaphragm."  The  explanation  proffered 
by  the  member  of  the  Authors  Club  is  as 
simple  as  it  is  alluring;  there  was  so  total 
and  complete  a  sympathy  between  the 
American  sage  and  the  Scotch  humorist 
that  for  the  first  time  in  recorded  history 
we  can  behold  the  phenomenon  of  the 
Transfusion  of  Indigestion.  In  other 
words,  Emerson  ate  the  pie  and  Carlyle 
had  the  dyspepsia ! 

Of  all  the  pies  that  are  prevalent 
throughout  the  great  American  Pie-Belt, 
it  may  be  admitted  at  once  that  the  mince 
is,  perhaps,  the  most  deadly,  but  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  the  pumpkin  is  the  most 
characteristically  American,  if  not  also 
the  most  popular.  Twice  have  simple 
lyrists  lifted  up  their  voices  to  carol  forth 
the  proper  praise  of  this  delightful  dish. 
The  first  of  these  is  anonymous;  and  it 


CAROLS  OF  COOKERY 

was  in  1818  that  he  contributed  to  the 
Boston  Sentinel  these  stanzas  inspired  by 
sincere  enthusiasm,  the  Tumpkin  Pye.' 

The  bards  of  the  Hudson  may  sing  of  the  melon, 

Its  smooth,  jetty  seeds  and  its  ripe,  ruddy  core, 
And  the  feast  of  the  reaper  with  ecstasy  dwell  on, 

Reclining  at  noon  on  the  cool,   breezy  shore ; 
For  me,  the  rich  soil  of  New  England  produces 

An  offering  more  dear  to  the  taste  and  the  eye, 
The  bright  yellow  pumpkin — how  mellow  its  juices, 

When  temper'd  with  ginger,  and  bak'd  into  pye. 
******* 

Then  hail  to  the  Muse  of  the  pumpkin  and  onion ! 
The  Frenchman  may  laugh  and  the  Englishman 

sneer 
At  the    land  of    the    Bible,  and    psalm  book,    and 

Bunyan, 

Still,  still  to  my  bosom  her  green  hills  are  dear ; 
Her     daughters    are    pure    as    her    bright    crystal 

fountains, 

And  Hymen,  if  ever  thy  blessings  I  try, 
O !  give  me  the  girl  of  my  own  native  mountains, 
Who  knows  how  to  temper  the  sweet  pumpkin  pye. 

The  second  was  no  less  a  poet  than 
John  Greenleaf  Whittier,  the  laureate  of 
New  England,  the  singer  who  has  given 
voice  to  the  homely  sentiments  of  his  sec- 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

tion  more  satisfactorily  than  any  other. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  objected  that  he  deals 
with  the  fruit  wherefrom  the  pie  is  com 
pounded  than  with  the  pie  itself;  but  this 
objection  is  too  trivial  for  discussion. 
Here  is  a  stanza  of  Whittier's  autumnal 
dithyramb  on  the  pumpkin : 

Ah !  on  Thanksgiving  Day,  when  from  East  and  from 

West, 
From  North  and  from  South  come  the  pilgrim  and 

guest ; 
When  the  grey-haired   New   Englander   sees   round 

his  board 

The  old  broken  links  of  affection  restored ; 
When  the  care-wearied  man  seeks  his  mother  once 

more, 
And  the  worn  matron  smiles  where  the  girl  smiled 

before ; 

What  moistens  the  lip  and  what  brightens  the  eye, 
What  calls  back  the  past  like  the  rich  pumpkin  pie? 

An  earlier  American  poet  than  either  of 
these  has  sung  of  an  American  dish  more 
primitive  than  apple  pie  or  pumpkin.  When 
Joel  Barlow — the  maker  of  that  great  gun 
of  poesy,  the  'Columbiad,'  now  spiked  in 
silence  and  rusting  in  oblivion — was  at 
156 


CAROLS  OF  COOKERY 

Chambery  in  Savoy  in  January,  1793,  his 
thoughts  turned  homeward  to  his  native 
land  and  to  the  toothsome  simplicity  of 
homely  hasty-pudding.  He  was  moved  to 
prepare  three  cantos  in  commendation  of 

The   sweets  of  Hasty-Pudding.     Come,   dear  bowl, 
Glide  o'er  my  palate,  and  inspire  my  soul, 
The  milk  beside  thee,  smoking  from  the  kine, 
Its  substance  mingle,  married  in  with  thine, 
Shall  cool  and  temper  thy  superior  heat, 
And  save  the  pains  of  blowing  while  I  eat. 

A  little  later  the  poet's  strain  rises  with 
the  occasion,  and  he  seeks  to  ascertain  the 
lofty  origin  of  the  grateful  dish  he  was 
decking  with  chaplets  of  couplets  gathered 
in  his  distant  exile : 

Assist  me  first  with  pious  toil  to  trace 
Through  wrecks  of  time,  thy  lineage  and  thy  race; 
Declare  what  lovely  squaw,  in  days  of  yore, 
(Ere  great  Columbus  sought  thy  native  shore) 
First  gave  thee  to  the  world ;  her  works  of  fame 
Have  lived  indeed,  but  lived  without  a  name. 
Some  tawny  Ceres,  goddess  of  her  days, 
First    learned    with   stones    to   crack   the    well-dried 

maize, 

Through  the  rough  sieve  to  shake  the  golden  shower, 
In  boiling  water  stir  the  yellow  flour; 

157 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

The  yellow  flour,  bestrewed  and  stirred  with  haste, 

Swells  in  the  flood  and  thickens  to  a  paste, 

Then  puffs  and  wallops,  rises  to  the  brim, 

Drinks  the  dry  knobs  that  on  the  surface  swim, 

The  knobs  at  last  the  busy  ladle  breaks, 

And  the  whole  mass  her  true  consistence  takes. 

Even  over  in  Europe,  on  the  confines 
of  France  and  Italy,  he  found  the  Indian 
corn  transplanted  and  doing  its  duty  nobly 
though  in  a  foreign  clime: 

But  man,  more  fickle,  the  bold  license  claims, 
In  different  realms  to  give  thee  different  names. 
Thee  the  soft  nations  round  the  warm  Levant 
Polenta  call,  the  French,  of  course,  Polente. 
E'en  in  thy  native  regions,  now  I  blush 
To  hear  the  Pennsylvanians  call  thee  Mush! 
On  Hudson's  banks,  while  men  of  Belgic  spawn 
Insult  and  eat  thee  by  the  name  Suppawn. 
All  spurious  appellations,  void  of  truth ; 
I've  better  known  thee  from  my  earliest  youth — 
Thy  name  is  Hasty-Pudding!  thus  my  sire 
Was  wont  to  greet  thee  fuming  from  his  fire. 

A  curious  comparison  next  invites  us  to 
set  beside  this  epic  praise  of  one  of  the 
ways  of  serving  the  products  of  our  national 
plant,  the  maize,  with  a  lighter  lyric, 
wherein  a  negro  balladist  has  sung  the  joys 
158 


CAROLS  OF  COOKERY 

that  accompany  another  form,  in  which 
Indian-meal  may  be  prepared  for  the  tempt 
ing  of  our  palates.  Here  are  two  stanzas 
of  Mr.  Paul  Laurence  Dunbar's  poem, 
When  the  Co'n-Pone's  Hot' : 

Dey  is  times  in  life  when  Nature 

Seems  to  slip  a  cog  an'  go, 
Jes'  a-rattlin'  down  creation, 

Lak  an  ocean's  overflow; 
When  the  worl'  jes'  stahts  a-spinnin' 

Lak  a  pickaninny's  top, 
An'  yo'  cup  o'  joy  is  brimmin' 

Twell  it  seems  about  to  slop. 
An'  you  feel  jes'  lak  a  racah 

Dat  is  trainin'  fu'  to  trot — 
When  yo'  mammy  ses  de  blessin' 

An'  de  co'n-pone's  hot. 
****** 

I  have  heerd  o'  lots  o'  sermons, 

An'  I've  heerd  o'  lots  o'  prayers, 
An'  I've  listened  to  some  singin' 

Dat  has  tuk  me  up  de  stairs 
Of  de  Glory-Lan'  an'  set  me 

Jes'  below  de  Mahster's  th'one, 
An'  have  lef  my  hawt  singin' 

In  a  happy  aftahtone, 
But  dem  wu'ds  so  sweetly  murmured 

Seems  to  tech  de  softes'  spot, 
When  my  mammy  ses  de  blessin' 

An'  de  co'n-pone's  hot. 
159 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Hasty-pudding  and  corn-pone,  nourish 
ing  as  they  are  and  estimable  in  every  way, 
lack  distinction  a  little;  they  smack  of  the 
log  cabin  and  of  the  negro  quarters;  they 
would  not  appeal  to  the  Little  Brothers 
of  the  Rich.  For  them  rather  does  the 
miserable  goose  fatten  his  unhealthy  liver; 
for  them  the  canvasback  seeks  out  the  wild 
celery;  for  them  the  terrapin  fulfils  the 
end  of  his  existence.  Mr.  Herman  Oelrichs 
has  rhymed  for  us  his  regret  that  the 
Roman  epicures  had  to  depart  this  life 
without  having  tasted  the  terrapin;  and  it 
is  evident  that  the  sympathetic  poet  believes 
their  lives  to  have  been  wasted,  and  worse 
than  wasted,  since  they  failed  of  the  bliss 
they  were  most  capable  of  appreciating. 

And  if  terrapin  would  be  a  dish  worthy 
of  Horace,  what  would  Thackeray  have 
thought  of  it?  Thackeray  penned  the 
'Ballad  of  Bouillabaisse/  and  lent  to  that 
unsavoury  and  unsatisfactory  mess — there 
is  no  other  word  for  it  than  that! — the 
incomparable  aroma  of  his  playful  pathos : 
160 


CAROLS  OF  COOKERY 

This  Bouillabaisse  a  noble  dish  is — 

A  sort  of  soup  or  broth,  or  brew, 
Or  hotpotch  of  all  sorts  of  fishes, 

That  Greenwich  never  could  outdo; 
Green  herbs,  red  peppers,  mussels,  saffron, 

Soles,  onions,  garlic,  roach  and  dace; 
All  these  you  eat  at  Terre's  tavern, 

In  that  one  dish  of  Bouillabaisse. 

Indeed,  a  rich  and  savory  stew  'tis ; 

And  true  philosophers,  methinks, 
Who  love  all  sorts  of  natural  beauties, 

Should  love  good  victuals  aad  good   drinks. 
And  Cordelier  or  Benedictine 

Might  gladly,  sure,  his  lot  embrace, 
Nor  find  a  fast-day  too  afflicting, 

Which  served  him  up  a  Bouillabaisse. 

The  sentimental  visitors  to  Marseilles 
who  seek  out  a  proper  place  to  try  to  like 
that  untempting  dish,  are  rarely  honest 
enough  with  themselves  to  admit  that  it 
is  not  the  dish  itself  they  have  enjoyed, 
but  the  tenderness  of  Thackeray's  touch 
ing  verses : 

Where  are  you,  old  companions  trusty 
Of  early  days  here  met  to  dine? 

Come,   waiter!   quick,   a  flagon  crusty — 
I'll  pledge  them  in  the  good  otd  wine. 
161 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

The  kind  old  voices  and  old  faces 

My  memory  can  quick  retrace ; 
Around   the   board   they   take   their   places, 

And  share  the  wine  and  Bouillabaisse. 


The  learned  Dr.  Gross  is  a  professor 
in  the  University  of  Freiburg,  and  he  is 
the  author  of  a  most  interesting  and  most 
instructive  treatise  on  the  'Beginnings  of 
Art,'  in  the  pages  of  which  he  discusses 
not  only  sculpture  and  architecture  and 
painting,  but  also  music  and  the  dance, 
the  drama  and  poetry.  And  some  of  the 
readers  of  this  paper  who  may  have  sup 
posed  that  it  was  only  in  a  sophisticated 
period  of  high  development  and  of  abun 
dant  leisure  that  man  could  spare  time  to 
rhyme  recipes  and  to  chant  the  charm  of 
cookery,  will  be  surprised  to  learn  that  this 
was  a  habit  also  of  primitive  man.  "The 
lyric  poetry  of  hunting  tribes,"  so  Dr. 
Gross  assures  us,  uvery  rarely  soars  to  a 
higher  flight;  it  rather  abides  with  unmis 
takable  preference  in  the  lower  regions  of 
sensuality.  The  coarsest  material  pleas- 
162 


CAROLS  OF  COOKERY 

ures  occupy  a  very  large  space  in  primitive 
verse;  and  we  do  these  poets  no  wrong 
when  we  say  that  their  lyric  inspiration  is 
quite  as  often  of  the  stomach  as  of  the 
heart.  It  must  indeed  appear  a  real  sacri 
lege  to  an  ideal  aesthete  that  we  presume  to 
pass  off  the  eating  and  drinking  songs  of 
the  Australians  and  Botocudos,  especially 
as  poetical  productions.  They  are,  never 
theless,  such,  as  they  are  truly  expressions 
of  feeling  in  verbal  rhythmic  form.  No 
feeling  is  in  and  of  itself  poetic;  and  there 
is  no  feeling  which  cannot  be  made  poetical 
if  it  is  expressed  in  an  aesthetic  form  for 
an  aesthetic  purpose.  It  may,  moreover, 
soften  the  indignation  that  arises  against 
the  use  that  is  made  here  of  the  name 
of  poetry,  if  we  recollect  that  even  the 
tenderest  lyric  poets  of  civilization  occa 
sionally  do  not  consider  it  unworthy  of 
them  to  extol  the  pleasures  of  the  table." 
(1900). 


163 


IX 
RECIPES  IN  RHYME 

4  4     •     ^  OOKS,"  said  that  acute  critic, 
1— ^      Walter  Bagehot,  "are  for 
|!      W     various  purposes :  tracts,  to 
teach;    almanacs,    to   sell; 
poetry,  to  make  pastry.1'    The  British  scof 
fer  did  not  foresee  that  a  Gallic  dramatist, 
the  author  of  'Cyrano  de  Bergerac,'  would 
one  day  set  upon  the  stage  a  pastry  cook 
who  should  be  also  a  poet  and  who  would 
be   therefore   able   to   declare   the   eternal 
principles  of  the  culinary  art  in  imperish 
able  rhyme.     It  is  this  Ragueneau  of  M. 
de  Rostand  who  thus  sets  forth  the  proper 
manner  of  preparing  that  delectable  dish 
'known  as  'Les  Tartelettes  Amandines1 : 

Battez,  pour  qu'ils  soient  mousseux 

Quelques  ceufs; 
Incorporez  a  leur  mousse 
Un  jus  de  cedrat  choisi; 

Versez-y 

Un  bon  lait  d'amande  douce ; 
164 


RECIPES    IN    RHYME 

Mettez  de  la  pate  a  flan 

Dans  le  flanc 
De  moules  a  tartelette ; 
D'un  doigt  preste,  abricotez 

Les  cotes; 
Versez  goutte  a  gouttelette 

Votre  mousse  en  ces  puits,  puis 

Que  ces  puits 

Passant  au  four,  et,  blondines, 
Sortant  en  gais  troupelets, 

Ce  sont  les 
Tartelettes  amandines ! 

And  this  has  been  rendered  readily  into 
English  rhymes  by  Gertrude  Hall,  thus: 
'Almond  Cheese  Cakes': 

Briskly  beat  to  lightness  due, 

Eggs  a  few; 

With  the  eggs  so  beaten,  beat — 
Nicely  strained  for  this  same  use — 

Lemon  juice, 
Adding  milk  of  almonds,  sweet 

With  fine  pastry  dough,  rolled  flat, 

After  that, 

Line  each  little  scalloped  mould ; 
Round  the  sides,  light-fingered,  spread 

Marmalade ; 
Pour  the  liquid  eggy  gold, 

165 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Into  each  delicious  pit; 

Prison  it 

In  the  oven, — and,  by  and  by, 
Almond  cheese  cakes  will  in  gay 

Blonde  array 
Bless  your  nostril  and  your  eye ! 

Another  French  dramatist,  the  younger 
Alexander  Dumas,  has  caused  a  charming 
young  lady  in  his  comedy  of  'Francillon' 
to  declare  the  true  formula  of  a  Japanese 
salad — avowedly  of  her  own  invention. 
But  this  formula  is  in  bald  prose — nay, 
more,  it  is  in  the  broken  dialogue  of  the 
stage;  and  therefore  it  is  inadmissible  amid 
these  recipes,  more  metrical,  if  not  more 
musical.  The  so-called  Japanese  salad  of 
the  Frenchman  is  just  a  little  too  compli 
cated  to  win  favor  in  the  eyes  of  American 
epicures,  whose  taste  is  simpler,  less  sophis 
ticated — in  a  word,  purer.  In  a  salad  the 
full  flavor  of  the  chief  ingredient  should  be 
evoked  directly  by  the  dressing,  the  sharp 
ness  of  the  vinegar  and  the  blandness  of 
the  oil  uniting  for  the  purpose.  And  this 
is  why  the  British  salads  often  lack  a  wel- 
166 


RECIPES    IN    RHYME 

come  from  Americans;  they  are  too  fussy; 
they  are  not  content  to  let  well  enough 
alone.  It  is  this  which  vitiates  the  best 
known  of  all  rhyming  recipes — that  of 
Sydney  Smith,  for  a  winter  salad : 

Two  large  potatoes  passed  through  the  kitchen  sieve 

Unwonted  softness  to  the  salad  give. 

Of  mordant  mustard  add  a  single  spoon — 

Distrust  the  condiment  which  bites  too  soon. 

But  deem  it  not,  thou  man  of  herbs,  a  fault 

To  add  a  double  quantity  of  salt. 

Three  times  the  spoon  with  oil  of  Lucca  crown, 

And  once  with  vinegar  procured  from  town. 

True  flavor  needs  it,  and  your  poet  begs 

The  pounded  yellow  of  the  two  well-boiled  eggs. 

Let  onion  atoms  lurk  within  the  bowl, 

And  unsuspected  animate  the  whole. 

And,  lastly,  on  the  flavored  compound  toss 

A  magic  teaspoon  of  anchovy  sauce. 

Then     though    green    turtle    fail,    though    venison's 

tough, 

And  ham  and  turkey  are  not  boiled  enough, 
Serenely  full  the  epicure  may  say, 
"Fate  cannot  harm  me— I  have  dined  to-day !" 

The  verse  is  brisk  enough,  whatever  may 

be  thought  of  the  moral;  and  the  reverend 

rhymester  has  set  a  model  for  a  host  of  later 

poetasters   (perhaps  even  one  might  here 

167 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

venture  on  an  orthography  more  appropri 
ate,  however  inaccurate,  and  style  these 
imitators  of  the  good  dean — poet-tasters). 
The  most  of  these  followers  of  Sydney 
Smith  are  nameless;  they  have  failed  to 
tag  themselves  to  their  formulas,  from 
modesty,  perhaps,  and  perhaps  from  care 
lessness.  Here,  for  example,  are  two  sets 
of  versified  directions  for  compounding  the 
delectable  plum  pudding.  The  first  of 
them  is  of  British  authorship,  apparently, 
and  also  of  a  stricter  orthodoxy;  a  'Poetical 
Recipe  for  English  Plum  Pudding' : 

To  make  a  plum  pudding  to  Englishmen's  taste, 

So  all  may  be  eaten  and  nothing  be  waste, 

Take  of  raisins,  and  currants,  and  bread  crumbs  all 

round ; 

Also  suet  from  oxen,  and  of  flour  a  pound. 
Of  citron  well  candied,  or  lemon  as  good, 
With  molasses  and  sugar,  eight  ounces,  I  would. 
Into  this  first  compound  next  must  be  hasted 
A  nutmeg  well  grated,  ground  ginger  well  tasted, 
Then  of  milk  half  a  pint,  and  of  fresh  eggs  take  six ; 
Be  sure  after  this  that  you  properly  mix. 
Next  tie  up  in  a  bag,  just  as  round  as  you  can, 
Put  it  into  a  capacious  and  suitable  pan, 
Then  boil  for  eight  hours  just  as  hard  as  you  can. 
168 


RECIPES    IN    RHYME 

The  second  seems  rather  to  be  of  Amer 
ican  origin,  although  in  such  matters  exact 
accuracy  is  difficult  of  attainment  and  the 
poet  without  a  name  is  likely  to  prove  a 
man  without  a  country  unless  his  speech 
betrayeth  him ; — Tlum  Pudding' : 

Aunt  Betsy  makes  good  pudding, 

And  you  can  likewise  do  it 
If  you  follow  her  directions : 

"Take  half  a  pound  of  suet, 
Three  quarter  pounds  of  bread  crumbs  fine, 
Two  tablespoons  of  brandy  wine. 
One  and  a  quarter  pounds  of  fruit, 
A  pinch  of  grated  ginger  root, 
Quarter-pound  moist  sugar — brown — 
A  single  nutmeg  grated  down, 
Two  tablespoons  of  milk  or  cream 
(The  latter  is  best,  I  deem) 
Four  eggs — and  just  enough  molasses 
To  fill  one  of  your  small  wine-glasses — 
Then  steam  five  hours."    I'm  sure  you'll  say 
"No  better  cook  than  Betsy  Leigh." 

The  model  set  by  Sydney  Smith  has  been 

followed  also  by  Mr.  Adolph  Meyer  in  a 

string  of  couplets  wherein  he  praises  one  of 

the  foremost  of  American  contributions  to 

169 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

the  resources  of  the  gastronomic  art.  In 
spite  of  his  Teutonic  name,  the  poet  is  prob 
ably  an  American — although  it  is  to  be  re 
called  always  that  the  dish  he  celebrates 
has  been  accepted  in  France  also,  infrequent 
as  have  been  French  borrowings  from  the 
kitchens  of  other  countries.  Here  are 
Mr.  Meyer's  verses — and  it  is  chiefly  in 
his  final  quatrain  that  he  recalls  the 
prescription  of  the  earlier  Englishman : — 
'Lobster  a  1' Americaine' : 

A  lobster  full  of  life  you  need, 
But,  ere  you  further  shall  proceed, 
Drop  him  within  a  copper  pot 
That's  filled  with  water  boiling-hot. 
When  boiled,  then  him  in  eighths  divide, 
Now  turn  these  oft  from  side  to  side 
In  butter  simmering  in  a  pan, 
And  do  this  careful  as  you  can, 
And  salt  and  pepper  ere  you  cease. 
Of  garlic  crush  a  little  piece, 
This  with  a  glass  of  Chablis  add — 
Your  lobster  then  cannot  be  bad. 
Skin  six  tomatoes  and  take  out  the  seed; 
Do  this  as  thoroughly  as  it  may  need. 
Now  with  the  lobster  altogether  cook, 
And  that  the  mixture  does  not  burn,  oft  look. 
170 


RECIPES    IN    RHYME 

A  little  spice  would  add  unto  the  savor ; 

Bay-leaf  and   thyme  have   not  too   strong  a  flavor. 

And  after  thirty  minutes  on  the  fire 

The  lobster's  cooked.    In  peace  you  can  retire. 

Invite  your  friends  now  to  this  treat 

'Twould  tempt  a  dying  man  to  eat; 

The  sauce  is  better  than  the  lobster,  too. 

Such  dishes  are,  you  will  agree  with  me,  too  few, 

This  dainty  feast  would  surely  animate 

The  most  despondent,  melancholic  pate; 

He  will  give  thanks  when  he  in  truth  can  say, 

"  'Twas  Lobster  a  1'Americaine  to-day." 

It  is  true  that  some  iconoclast,  ever  swift 
to  upset  tradition,  may  be  ready  to  prove 
that  "lobster  American  style"  is  French, 
after  all,  and  in  spite  of  its  name.  But  the 
nationality  of  another  preparation  of  shell 
fish  is  indisputable;  and  the  rollicking 
rhymester  who  has  lyrically  recorded  the 
proper  method  to  be  employed  in  its  con 
coction  would  stand  revealed  as  an  Ameri 
can,  even  though  his  name  was  wholly 
unknown.  For  where  else  do  clams  dwell 
except  in  America?  They  are  citizens  of 
the  United  States  by  nativity;  and  it  was 
a  worthy  patriotism  that  inspired  Mr.  W. 
171 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

A.    Croffut  to  proclaim   the   transcendent 
and  most  appetizing  flavor  of  'Clam  Soup' : 

First  catch  your  clam — along  the  ebbing  edges 
Of  saline  coves  you'll  find  the  precious  wedges, 
With  backs  up,  lurking  in  the  sandy  bottom ; 
Pull  in  your  iron  rake,  and  lo !  you've  got  'em. 
Take  thirty  large  ones,  put  a  basin  under, 
And  cleave  with  knife  the  stony  jaws  asunder; 
Add  water  (three  quarts)  to  the  native  liquor, 
Bring  to  a  boil  (and,  by  the  war,  the  quicker 
It  boils  the  better,  if  you'd  do  it  cutely), 
Now  add  the  clams,  chopped  up  and  minced  min 
utely. 

Allow  a  longer  boil  of  just  three  minutes, 
And  while  it  bubbles  quickly  stir  within  its 
Tumultuous  depths,  where  still  the  mollusks  mutter, 
Four  tablespoons  of  flour  and  four  of  butter, 
A  pint  of  milk,  some  pepper  to  your  notion, 
And  clams  need  salting,  although  born  of  ocean. 
Remove  from  fire   (if  much  boiled  they  will  suffer, 
You'll  find  that  India-rubber  isn't  tougher)  ; 
After  'tis  off,  add  three  fresh  eggs  well  beaten, 
Stir  once  more,  and  it's  ready  to  be  eaten. 
Fruit  of  the  wave !  oh,  dainty  and  delicious ! 
Food  for  the  gods !  ambrosia  for  Apicius ! 
Worthy  to  thrill  the  soul  of  sea-born  Venus, 
Or  titillate  the  palate  of  Silenus. 

It  is  not  in  the  United  States,  but  in 
Great  Britain,  that  one  must  seek  the  song- 
172 


RECIPES    IN    RHYME 

ster  of  the  swan.  The  cygnets  of  Norwich 
are  eaten  before  the  end  of  November, 
being  cooked  on  a  spit  according  to  the 
directions  thus  rhythmically  preserved: 

Take  three  pounds  of  beef  fat,  beat  in  a  mortar. 
Put  it  into  the  swan,  that  is,  when  you've  caught  her ; 
Some  pepper,  salt,  mace,  some  nutmeg,  an  onion, 
Will  heighten  the  flavor  in  gourmand's  opinion. 
Then  tie  up  tight  with  a  small  piece  of  tape, 
That  the  gravy  and  other  things  may  not  escape. 
A  meal  paste,   rather  thick,   should  be  laid  on  the 

breast, 

And  some  whited  brown  paper  should  cover  the  rest. 
Fifteen  minutes  at  least  ere  the  swan  you  take  down ; 
Pull  the  paste  off  the  bird  that  the  breast  may  get 

brown. 

The  Gravy 

To  a  gravy  of  beef,  good  and  strong,  I  opine, 
You'd  be  right  if  you  add  half  a  pint  of  port  wine : 
Pour  this  through  the  swan;  yes,  quite  through  the 

belly; 
Then  serve  the  whole  up  with  some  hot  currant  jelly. 

Would  not  the  opinion  of  Pythagoras 
concerning  wild  fowl  have  been  modified 
perforce  if  he  had  ever  tasted  a  young 
swan  thus  artfully  prepared — or  if  he  had 
ever  had  the  good  fortune  to  find  before 
173 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

him  the  even  more  toothsome  canvasback 
duck,  as  yet  unsung  by  any  bard? 

Hawthorne  has  told  us  of  a  dream  he 
had  once  uthat  the  world  had  become  dis 
satisfied  with  the  inaccurate  manner  in 
which  facts  are  reported,  and  had  employed 
him  at  a  salary  of  a  thousand  dollars 
to  relate  things  of  importance  exactly  as 
they  happen."  Here  is  a  valuable  sugges 
tion,  fit  for  instant  use.  If  any  philan 
thropist  is  at  a  loss  how  to  lay  out  his 
money  to  advantage,  let  him  employ  half 
a  dozen  or  half  a  score  of  minor  poets, 
deft  in  the  adjustment  of  rhymes,  and  set 
them  to  singing  the  praises  of  the  good 
things  of  life  and  to  putting  into  immortal 
verse  the  best  ways  of  cooking  this  or  that 
delectable  dish.  Thus  should  the  lyrist 
and  the  culinary  artist  collaborate  for  the 
benefit  of  posterity.  Men  of  science  tell 
us  that  rhymes  and  jingles  linger  in  the  ear 
longer  than  mere  prose;  and  recipes  likely 
to  be  lost  if  left  in  perishable  prose  might 
aspire  to  a  lofty  longevity  if  fixed  in  verse. 

174 


RECIPES    IN    RHYME 

Here  is  a  case  in  point.  The  sack-posset 
is  now  no  longer  concocted;  and  even  the 
most  learned  compounder  of  American 
drinks  would  be  puzzled  if  a  sack-posset 
were  suddenly  demanded.  Yet,  though 
the  thing  itself  be  vanished  from  the  face 
of  the  earth,  the  formula  used  in  mixing 
it  has  survived  in  verse  for  now  more  than 
a  century  and  a  half.  In  February,  1744, 
in  the  Gazette  of  Bradford,  the  New  York 
printer  gave  ua  receipt  for  all  young  ladies 
that  have  an  eye  to  matrimony," — 'To 
Make  a  Sack- Posset' : 


From  famed  Barbados,  on  the  western  main, 

Fetch  sugar  half  a  pound;   fetch  sack  from  Spain 

A  pint ;  and  from  the  East  India  coast 

Nutmeg,  the  glory  of  our  Northern  toast; 

O'er  flaming  coals  together  let  them  heat 

Till  the  all-conquering  sack  dissolves  the  sweet; 

O'er  such  another  fire  set  eggs,  twice  ten, 

New  born,  the  product  of  the  wedded  hen ; 

Stir  them  with  steady  hand,  and  conscience  pricking 

To  see  the  untimely  fate  of  twenty  chicken ; 

From  shining  shelf  take  down  your  brazen  skillet, 

A  quart  of  milk  from  gentle  cow  will  fill  it; 

When  boiled  and  cooled,  put  milk  and  sack  to  egg, 

175 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Unite  them  firmly  like  the  triple  league; 

Then,  covered  close,  together  let  them  dwell 

Till    miss    twice    sings,    "You    must    not    kiss    and 

tell," 

Then,  lad  and  lass,  snatch  up  your  eager  spoon, 
And  fall  on  fiercely,  like  a  starved  dragoon. 

Although  this  has  been  borrowed  from 
one  of  the  earliest  of  American  newspapers, 
its  authorship  is  probably  British;  indeed, 
one  may  doubt  whether  there  was  in  all 
his  Majesty's  colonies  in  1744  any  one  hav 
ing  command  over  light  and  easy  versifica 
tion  of  this  sort.  The  technical  skill  of  the 
Bacchanalian  instructor  may  not  be  worthy 
of  the  very  highest  praise,  yet,  none  the  less, 
it  is  beyond  the  possession  of  any  of  the 
American  versifiers  of  that  early  day, — 
even  if  they  had  deigned  to  bestow  their 
attention  upon  the  poetic  aspects  of  the 
culinary  art. 

After  the  lapse  of  a  century  and  a  half, 
more  than  one  lyrist  has  arisen  in  the 
United  States  ready  to  preserve  in  verse 
the  proper  method  of  preparing  one  or 
another  of  the  American  national  dishes. 
176 


RECIPES    IN    RHYME 

The  doughnut,  the  descendant  of  the  Dutch 
oilcake,  that  first  cousin  of  the  Knicker 
bocker  cruller: 

One  cup  of  sugar,  one  cup  of  milk; 

Two  eggs  beaten  fine  as  silk, 

Salt  and  nutmegs  (lemon  '11  do)  ; 

Of  baking-powder,  teaspoons  two. 

Lightly  stir  the  flour  in; 

Roll  in  pie-board  not  too  thin ; 

Cut  in  diamonds,  twists,  or  rings. 

Drop  with  care  the  doughy  things 

Into  fat  that  briskly  swells 

Evenly  the  spongy  cells. 

Watch  with  care  the  time  for  turning; 

Fry  them  brown — just  short  of  burning. 

Roll  in  sugar,  serve  when  cool. 

Price — a  quarter  for  this  rule. 

And  even  corn-pone  has  been  embalmed 
in  rhyme  by  a  right  reverend  bard — the 
corn-pone  which  the  white  American  rarely 
gets  nowadays,  although  the  red  American 
rarely  made  it  (or  its  equivalent)  before 
the  white  American  came  across  the  At 
lantic,  and  although  the  black  American 
best  appreciates  the  delicacy  of  its  proper 
preparation.  It  was  an  American  Bishop 
177 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

(William  of  Connecticut)  who  followed 
the  ecclesiastical  precedent  of  the  English 
dean,  and  proclaimed  the  only  true  way 
of  making  the  humble  dish  : 

Take  a  cup  of  corn-meal,  and  the  meal  should  be 

yellow ; 
Add  a   cup   of  wheat  flour   for  to  make  the   corn 

mellow ; 

Of  sugar  a  cup,  white  or  brown  or  your  pleasure, 
(The  color  is  nothing,  the  fruit  is  the  measure)  ; 

And  now  comes  a  troublesome  thing  to  indite, 
For  the  rhyme  and  the  reason  they  trouble  me  quite ; 
For  after  the  sugar,  the  flour,  and  the  meal 
Comes  a  cup  of  sour  cream,  but  unless  you  should 

steal 

From  your  neighbors,  I  fear  you  will  never  be  able 
This  item  to  put  upon  your  cook's  table: 
For  "sure  and  indeed,"  in  all  town  I  remember, 
Sour  cream  is  as  scarce  as  June  buds  in  December. 

So  here  an  alternative  nicely  contrived 

Is  suggested  your  mind  to  relieve, 
And  showing  how  you  without  stealing  at  all 

The  ground  that  is  lost  may  retrieve. 
Instead  of  sour  cream  take  one  cup  of  milk, 

"Sweet  milk!"  what  a  sweet  phrase  to  utter! 
And  to  make  it  creamlike  put  into  the  cup 

Just  three  tablespoonfuls  of  butter. 
178 


RECIPES    IN    RHYME 

Cream  of  tartar,  one  teaspoonful,  rules  dietic — 

How  nearly  I  wrote  it  down  tartar  emetic ! — 

But  no;  cream  of  tartar  it  is  without  doubt, 

And  so  the  alternative  makes  itself  out. 

Of  soda  the  half  of  a  teaspoonful  add, 

Or  else  your  poor  corn  cake  will  go  to  the  bad ; 

Two  eggs  must  be  broken  without  being  beat, 

Then  of  salt  a  teaspoonful  your  work  will  complete. 

Twenty  minutes  of  baking  are  needful  to  bring 

To  the  point  of  perfection  this  "awful  good  thing." 

To  eat  at  the  best  this  remarkable  cake 

You   should   fish   all   day   long  on   the   royal-named 

lake, 

With  the  bright  waters  glancing  in  glorious  light 
And  beauties  outnumbered  bewild'ring  your  sight, 
On  mountain  and  lake,  in  water  and  bay; 
And  then,  when  the  shadows  fall  down  from  on  high, 
Seek  "Sabbath  Day  Point,"  as  the  light  fades  away, 
And  end  with  this  feast  the  angler's  long  day, 
Then,  there  will  you  find,  without  any  question, 
That  an  appetite  honest  awaits  on  digestion. 

British  again  are  the  three  following, 
clipped  years  ago  from  a  newspaper  and 
derived  originally,  it  may  be,  from  the 
collection  of  Mr.  Punch.  They  are  entitled 
'Extracts  from  the  Commonplace-Book  of 
a  Connoisseur';  and  the  first  is  a  recipe 
for  Tigeon  Soup7 : 

179 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

"Eight  pigeons  take,  all  pluck,  and  two,  the  worst, 
Review,  i.e.,  cut  up,  and  drown  the  pair 
In  water  that  will  fill  a  large  tureen. 
Necks,  gizzards,  pinions,  livers  of  the  rest 
Add,  and  boil  well,  and  strain.     Season  the  birds, 
But  part  dissected,  with  your  pungent  spice, 
Mixed  spice  and  salt — English,  you  understand, 
Not  attic ;  that,  perchance,  you  lack — and  then 
Truss  them  as  if  their  little  toes  were  cold, 
Legs  into  belly.    Pick  and  wash  and  shred 
Parsley,  young  onions,  spinach  eke;  and  grate 
Bread,  say  a  handful.     In  the  frying-pan 
A  lump  of  butter  put,  and  when  it  boils, 
Throw  in  your  bread,  and,  mind  you,  do  it  brown. 
Put  on  the  stock  to  boil,  and  add  the  birds, 
Herbs,  and  fried  bread,  and  when  the  doves  are  done, 
Of  course  they  may  be  dished. 

— 'Massacre  of  the  Innocents.' 

The  second  considers  'Cocky  Leeky': 

Scrag  of  mutton,  shank  of  veal, 
From  the  butcher  where  you  deal ; 
Good  beef  stock  is  even  better — 
Now,  then,  follow  to  the  letter: 
Portly  fowl,  with  leeks,  say  three, 
Pepper,  salt,  judiciously. 
Leeks  cut  up  in  inch-long  pieces; 
Slowly  boil.    When  it  decreases, 
After  a  good  hour  or  more, 
Add  three  sliced  leeks  as  before. 
180 


RECIPES    IN    RHYME 

One  hour  longer  let  it  bubble, 
It  will  pay  you  for  your  trouble. 
If  you've  followed  as  you  should, 
You'll  declare  the  stuff  is  good. 

—'Macbeth'    (improved). 

And    the    third    deals    with     'Stewed 
Oysters' : 

Friend  am  I,  and  not  foe,  and  yet  men  beard  me, 
And  boil  my  beard  in  my  own  juice  with  gravy; 
Strain  off  my  beard,  and  put  me  in  instead, 
Thicken  the  mess  with  flour  and  ounce  of  butter, 
Kill  my  ambrosial  flavor  with  their  ketchup 
(White  wine,  anchovy,  lemon,  what  you  will). 
Nutmeg,  and  salt  and  pepper,  mace  and  cream; 
Simmer  and  serve  me  up  on  toasted  sippets. 
They  will  not  let  me  boil,  but  my  blood  boils 
At  thought  of  how,  while  they  would  paint  the  lily, 
Pepsine  and  piquant  coolness  both  must  perish. 

— 'The  Foreboding  Native.' 

And  at  the  end  of  this  crisscrossing  of 
the  northern  ocean,  with  quotations  first 
from  British  bards  and  then  from  American 
artists  in  metre,  it  is  to  New  York  that  a 
return  is  necessary  again  to  quote  here  the 
chaplet  of  couplets  written  by  the  American 
who  in  his  day  enjoyed  the  widest  fame  as 
181 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

a  gastronomist,  the  late  Samuel  Ward,  once 
a  banker  in  New  York  and  later  a  lobbyist 
in  Washington — and  always  a  good  liver 
and  a  good  fellow.  He  called  them  'Verses 
for  the  Kitchen1 : 

Always  have  lobster  sauce  with  salmon, 
And  put  mint  sauce  your  roasted  lamb  on. 

In  dressing  salad  mind  this  law — 

With   two  hard  yolks  use  one  that's  raw. 

Roast  veal  with  rich  stock  gravy  serve; 
And  pickled  mushrooms,  too,  observe. 

Roast  pork,  sans  apple  sauce,  past  doubt 
Is  'Hamlet'  with  the  Prince  left  out. 

.  Your  mutton  chops  with  paper  cover 
And  make  them  amber  brown  all  over. 

Broil  lightly  your  beefsteak— to  fry  it 
Argues  contempt  of  Christian  diet. 

To  roast  spring  chicken  is  to  spoil  'em 
Just  split  'em  down  the  back  and  broil  'em. 

It  gives  true  epicures  the  vapors 
To  see  boiled  mutton  minus  capers. 
182 


RECIPES    IN    RHYME 

The  cook  deserves  a  hearty  cuffing 

Who  serves  roast  fowls  with  tasteless  stuffing. 

Smelts  require  egg  and  biscuit  powder — 
Don't  put  fat  pork  in  your  clam  chowder. 

Egg  sauce — few  make  it  right,  alas! 
Is  good  with  bluefish  or  with  bass. 

Nice  oyster  sauce  gives  zest  to  cod — 
A  fish,  when  fresh,  to  feast  a  god. 

But  one  might  rhyme  for  weeks  this  way, 
And  still  have  lots  of  things  to  say. 

And  so  I'll  close,  for,  reader  mine, 
This  is  about  the  hour  I  dine. 


Whether  these  'Verses  for  the  Kitchen' 
are  fairly  to  be  included  under  the  title  of 
this  paper  may  be  a  matter  of  dispute ;  but 
not  to  be  debated  is  the  fact  that  they  are 
far  better  in  manner  and  in  matter  than 
most  of  the  other  gastronomic  effusions  here 
collected.  They  have  the  calm  ease  of  a 
man  who  knew  what  he  was  talking  about 
183 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

and  who  thought  his  opinion  on  the  subject 
worthy  of  condensation  into  couplets,  as 
sharp  as  carving-knives  should  be. 

The  things  we  eat  by  various  juice  controul, 
The  Narrowness  or  Largeness  of  the  soul. 
Onions  will  make  ev'n  Heirs  or  Widows  weep, 
The  tender  Lettice  brings  on  softer  Sleep. 
Eat  Beef  or  Pye-crust  if  you'd  serious  be ; 
Your  shell-fish  raises  Venus  from  the  Sea; 
For  Nature  that  inclines  to  111  or  Good, 
Still  nourishes  our  Passions  by  our  Food. 

So  wrote  the  author  of  the  'Art  of  Cook 
ery/  in  imitation  of  Horace's  'Art  of 
Poetry/  a  work  which  is  ascribed  to  the 
ingenious  Dr.  King;  which  was  printed  in 
London  in  1709  for  Bernard  Lintott,  at 
the  Cross  Keys  between  the  two  Temple 
Gates  in  Fleet  Street;  and  which  was 
humbly  inscribed  to  the  Honourable  Beef 
Steak  Club. 

With    one    more    quotation    from    Dr. 
King's  sapient  pages — if,  indeed,  this  'Art 
of  Cookery'  be  of  his  inditing — this  cul 
inary  anthology  may  fitly  close : 
184 


RECIPES    IN    RHYME 

"Pis  a  sage  Question,  if  the  Art  of  Cooks 

Is  lodg'd  by  Nature,  or  attained  by  Books ; 

That  Man  will  never  frame  a  noble  Treat 

Whose  whole  Dependence  lies  on  some  Receipt. 

Then  by  pure  Nature  ev'ry  thing  is  spoil'd, 

She  knows  no  more  than  stew'd,  bak'd,  roast,  and 

boil'd. 

When  Art  and  Nature  join  th'  effect  will  be 
Some  nice  Ragoust,  or  charming  Fricasy. 
(1900). 


185 


X 

THE   UNCOLLECTED   POEMS  OF 
H.  C.  BUNNER 


r^l^l  HE  late  H.  C.  Bunner  published 
9  two  volumes   of  poetry,    'Airs 

j|  from  Arcady'  and  'Rowen :  Sec 

ond-Crop  Songs.'  But  only  a 
small  proportion  of  his  verse,  comic  and 
serious,  is  contained  in  these  two  little 
books.  He  was  always  modest  in  discus 
sing  his  own  work,  in  prose  or  in  verse, 
yet  he  was  ambitious  also;  and  when  he 
came  to  choose  out  those  of  his  writings 
which  he  was  willing  to  reprint  in  book 
form,  he  held  up  a  high  standard  for  him 
self.  When  his  first  volume  of  short 
stones,  'In  Partnership/  was  ready  for  the 
printer  he  became  dissatisfied  with  one  of 
his  stories,  and  withdrew  it,  writing  in  its 
stead  the  vigorous  and  pathetic  tale  called 
186 


UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUNNER 

'A  Letter  and  a  Paragraph/  There  is 
also  a  long  serial  story,  contributed  to  a 
weekly  paper,  which  he  refused  always  to 
reprint  as  a  book,  although  it  was  an  ab 
sorbingly  dramatic  narrative.  In  selecting 
from  his  own  verse  he  was  even  more  par 
ticular.  Perhaps  this  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  he  was  widely  known  as  the  editor 
of  Puck,  and  that  if  he  had  reprinted  all 
of  even  the  best  of  his  humorous  verse 
he  would  have  been  accepted  only  as  a 
comic  poet.  He  was  unwilling  to  have 
the  graceful  and  imaginative  lyrics  which 
give  distinction  to  'Airs  from  Arcady'  and 
'Rowen'  swamped  by  an  undue  proportion 
of  his  lighter  verse.  In  neither  of  these 
volumes  did  he  include  any  of  his  more 
broadly  comic  pieces — like  this  sonnet, 
for  example,  in  which  the  reader  is  left 
in  doubt  as  to  what  manner  of  vessel  it 
is  the  poet  is  addressing: — 'To  a  Schooner'. 

O  Brave  and  Beautiful !  the  purling  foam 
Curls   clinging  with  caressing  touch  around 
Thy  curves  symmetrical.     My  heart  doth  bound 
187 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

At  sight  of  thee — 'neath  native  heavens'  dome, 
Or  far  abroad,  where  venturous  Teutons  roam. 

Moist  thy  smooth  sides  as  swiftly,  without  sound, 

Across  the  Bar  thou  passest,  brimmed  and  crowned 
With  thy  rich  freight,  dearer  than  musty  tome 
To  student's  heart;  sweet  as  the  honey-comb. 

Not  wondrous  caverns  underneath  the  ground, 
Dark  treasure-caves  of  subterranean  gnome, 

Yield  fairer  boon  than  in  thee  I  have  found — 
Peace!  O,  my  blissful  spirit's  cherished  home, 

In  yon  dark  flood  lies  Care  forever  drowned ! 

A  pleasant  flavor  of  the  classics  lingers 
about  the  lines  in  which  the  poet  set  down 
his  dissatisfaction  with  'Atlantic  City': 

O  City  that  is  not  a  city,  unworthy  the  prefix  At 
lantic, 

Forlornest  of  watering-places,  and  thoroughly  Phila- 
delphian ! 

In  thy  despite  I  sing,  with  a  bitter  and  deep  detesta 
tion — 

A  detestation  born  of  a  direful  and  dinnerless  even 
ing, 

Spent  in    thy    precincts    unhallowed — an    evening    I 
trust  may  recur  not. 

Never  till  then  did  I  know  what  was  meant  by  the 
word  god-forsaken : 

Thou     its    betokening    hast    taught    me,    being    the 
chiefest  example. 

188 


UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUNNER 

Thou  art  the  scorned  of  the  gods;  thy  sand  from 
their  sandals  is  shaken; 

Thee  have  they  left  in  their  wrath  to  thy  uninter 
esting  extensiveness, 

Barren  and  bleak  and  big;  a  wild  aggregation  of 
barracks, 

Miscalled  hotels,  and  of  dovecotes  denominate  cot 
tages  ; 

A  confusion  of  ugly  girls,  of  sand,  and  of  health- 
bearing  breezes, 

With  one  unending  plank-walk  for  a  true  Philadel 
phia  "attraction." 

City  ambitiously  named,  why,  with  inducements 
delusive, 

Is  the  un-Philadelphian  stranger  lured  to  thy  desert 
pretentious  ? 

'Tis  not  alone  that  thy  avenues,  broad  and  unpaved 
and  unending, 

Re-echo  yet  with  the  obsolete  music  of  'Pinafore,' 

Whistled  in  various  keys  by  the  rather  too  numerous 
negro ; 

'Tis  not  alone  that  Propriety — Propriety  too  Phila- 
delphian — 

Over  thee  stretches  an  aegis  of  wholly  superfluous 
virtue ; 

That  thou  art  utterly  good ;  hast  no  single  vice  to 
redeem  thee; 

'Tis  not  alone  that  thou  art  provincial  in  all  things, 
and  petty ; 

And  that  the  dulness  of  death  is  gay,  compared  to 
thy  dulness — 

189 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

"Tis  not  alone  for  these  things  that  my  curse  is  to 
rest  upon  thee : 

But  for  a  sin  that  crowns  thee  with  perfect  and  emi 
nent  badness ; 

Sets  thee  alone  in  thy  shame,  the  unworthiest  town 
on  the  sea-coast : 

THIS  :  that  thou  dinest  at  Noon,  and  then  in  a  man 
ner  barbarian, 

Soupless  and  wineless  and  coffeeless,  untimely  and 
wholly  indecent — 

As  is  the  custom,  I  learn,  in  Philadelphia  proper. 

I  rose  and  I  fled  from  thy  Supper ;  I  said :  "I  will  get 
me  a  Dinner!" 

Vainly  I  wandered  thy  streets :  thy  eating-places  un 
godly 

Knew  not  the  holiness  of  Dinner ;  in  all  that  evening 
I  dined  not; 

But  in  a  strange  low  lair,  infested  of  native  me 
chanics, 

BOLTED  a  fried  beef-steak  for  the  physical  need  of  my 
stomach. 

And  for  them  that  have  fried  that  steak,  in  Aides' 
lowest  back-kitchen 

May  they  eternally  broil,  by  way  of  a  warning  to 
others. 

During  my  wanderings,  I  met,  and  hailed  with  de 
light  one  Italian, 

A  man  with  a  name  from  Tasquale'— the  chap  sung 
by  Tagliapietra — 

He  knew  what  it  was  to  dine ;  he  comprehended  my 
yearnings ; 

190 


UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUNNER 

But  the  spell  was  also  on  him;  the  somnolent  spell 
Philadelphian ; 

And  his  hostelry  would  not  be  open  till   Saturday 
next;  and  I  cursed  him. 

Now  this  is  not  too  much  to  ask,  God  knows,  that  a 
mortal  should  want  a 

Pint  of  Bordeaux  to  his  dinner,  and  a  small  cigar 
ette  for  a  climax: 

But,  these  things  being  denied  him,  where  then  is 
your  Civilization? 

O  Coney   Island !    of  old    I  have  reviled    and    blas 
phemed  thee, 

For  that  thou  dowsest  thy  glim  at  an  hour  that  is  un- 
metropolitan ; 

That  thy  frequenters'  feet  turn  townwards  ere  strik- 
eth  eleven, 

When  the  returning  cars  are  filled  with  young  men 
and  maidens, 

Most  of  the  maidens  asleep  on  the  young  men's  cin- 
dery  shoulders — 

Yea,  but  I  spake  as  a  fool,  insensate,   disgruntled, 
ungrateful : 

Thee  will  I  worship  henceforth  in  appreciative  hu 
mility  : 

Luxurious  and  splendid  and  urban,  glorious  and  gas- 
lit  and  gracious, 

Gathering  from  every  land  thy  gay  and   ephemeral 
tenantry, 

From  the  Greek  who  hails  thee:  "Thalatta!"  to  the 
rustic  who  murmurs  "My  Golly!" 

From  the  Bowery  youth  who  requests  his  sweetheart 
to  "look  at  them  billers !" 
191 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

To  the  Gaul  whom  thy  laughing  waves  almost  per 
suade  to  immersion : 

0  Coney    Island,    thou     art    the    weary     citizen's 
heaven — 

A  heaven  to  dine,  not  die  in,  joyful  and  restful  and 

clamful, 
Better  one   hour   of  thee   than  an   age  of   Atlantic 

City! 

And  the  same  flavor,  more  pronounced, 
is  discoverable  also  in  the  daring  rhymes 
on  'Classic  Journalism' : 

The    beautiful    garland  of  justice    awaits 
The  eminent  poet  and  general,  Socrates. 
KROPHUTIKOS  GRAPHIKOS. 

5th  Century  B.  c. 

A  great  thing  was  journalism  in  Greece, 

When  that  nation  was  foremost  in  war  and  in  peace. 

1  was  long  on  the  staff  of  the  Athens  Courier, 
And  the  style  the  boys  ran  the  machine  you  shall 

hear. 

The  boss  paper  it  was  the  South-Spartan  Tribune, 
Which  was  owned  by  a  man  of  the  name  of  Laocoon ; 
And  had  a  grand  building,  where  down  the  two  sides 
Ran  two  rows  of  extra-sized  Caryatides. 
'Twas  a  very  fine  sheet,  with  a  half-page  of  locals, 
Done  up  in  neat  style  by  J.  Themistocles. 
At  the  top  of  its  columns,  its  letter-heads,  bills, 
192 


UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUNNER 

It  flaunted  the  name  of  its  founder,  Achilles. 

'Twas  so  high-toned,  the  boys  used  to  say  its  chief 

writer 

Was  nobody  less  than  Olympian  Jupiter. 
The  staff  boasted  ladies  galore,  Hermione 
Ran  the  fashion  column  entirely  alone. 
Cybele  did  the  Art  notes ;  the  critical  flail 
Was  skilfullly  wielded  by  Mrs.  Omphale. 
But  the  Boeotian  Herald  beat  this  a  long  sight, 
By  engaging  on  glorious  terms  Aphrodite. 
And  the  Herald  had  Hero,  who  later  demeaned  her- 
Self  by  receiving  the  visits  of  Leander. 
The  East-Acarnanian  Times  made  its  gains 
By  the  aid  and  assistance  of  Aristophanes. 
When  the  Greeks  sent  their  troops  against  Troy's 

forces  meagre. 

The  Times  dispatched  war-correspondent  Meleager. 
Then  there   was  the   Attican    World,   that    shocked 

Greece, 

By  opening  its  columns  to  Trojan  y£neas; 
But  its  editor  well  knew  his  sheet  how  to  carry  on ; 
Had  a  competent  musical  critic  in  Arion; 
And  knowing  public  fancy  a  feuilleton  tickles, 
He  secured  for  that  duty  the  well  known  Pericles. 
The  proprietor,  he  was  a  fellow  of  means, 
Senior  partner  of  Apollo  and  Diogenes. 
Ah,  those  were  great  times,  but  they're  all  long  gone 

by, 

Like  the  days  when  I  used  to  be  sweet  on  Clytie ; 
And  Greek  journalism  has  vanished  beneath 
The  silent,  oblivious  waters  of  Lethe. 

193 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

This  had  been  suggested  by  the  couplet 
quoted  from  Mr.  W.  A.  Croffut,  who  was 
then  contributing  to  the  now  departed 
Dally  Graphic.  Another  copy  of  verses 
had  its  origin  in  the  allegation  that  a  cer 
tain  songster  of  the  Sierras  had  written 
a  poem  in  which  the  name  of  the  author 
of  'Faust'  was  made  to  rhyme  with  the 
unpoetic  word  teeth.  The  American  hu 
morist  unhesitatingly  mispronounced  the 
names  Moliere  and  Goethe,  and  wrote 
these  stanzas  on  'Shake,  Mulleary  and 

Go-ethe.' 

I. 

I  have  a  bookcase,  which  is  what 
Many  much  better  men  have  not. 
There  are  no  books  inside,  for  books, 
I  am  afraid,  might  spoil  its  looks. 
But  I've  three  busts,  all  second-hand, 
Upon  the  top.     You  understand 
I  could  not  put  them  underneath — 
Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe. 

II. 

Shake  was  a  dramatist  of  note; 
He  lived  by  writing  things  to  quote, 
He  long  ago  put  on  his  shroud : 
194 


UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUNNER 

Some  of  his  works  are  rather  loud. 
His  bald-spot's  dusty,  I  suppose. 
I  know  there's  dust  upon  his  nose. 
I'll  have  to  give  each  nose  a  sheath — 
Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe. 

III. 

Mulleary's  line  was  quite  the  same; 
He  has  more  hair;  but  far  less  fame. 
I  would  not  from  that  fame  retrench — 
But  he  is  foreign,  being  French. 
Yet  high  his  haughty  head  he  heaves, 
The  only  one  done  up  in  leaves. 
They're  rather  limited  on  wreath — 
Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe. 

IV. 

Go-ethe  wrote  in  the  German  tongue: 
He  must  have  learned  it  very  young. 
His  nose  is  quite  a  but  for  scoff, 
Although  an  inch  of  it  is  off. 
He  did  quite  nicely  for  the  Dutch; 
But  here  he  doesn't  count  for  much. 
They  all  are  off  their  native  heath — 
Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe. 

V. 

They  sit  there,  on  their  chests,  as  bland 
As  if  they  were  not  second-hand. 
I  do  not  know  of  what  they  think, 
195 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Nor  why  they  never  frown  or  wink. 

But  why  from  smiling  they  refrain 

I  think  I  clearly  can  explain: 

They  none  of  them  could  show  much  teeth — 

Shake,  Mulleary  and  Go-ethe. 

In  the  early  days  of  Puck  the  young 
poet  chose  to  consider  himself  a  dweller 
in  the  coast  of  Bohemia;  and  yet  in  more 
than  one  of  his  poems  of  this  period  he 
seems  to  have  anticipated  the  time  when 
he  should  remove  from  the  seaport  of 
Prague.  This  feeling  is  reflected  more 
fully  in  the  verses  which  he  entitled  'Wed' 
than  in  any  other  of  his  poems,  excepting 
only,  it  may  be,  that  called  the  'Deserter/ 
Here  is  'Wed' : 

For  these  white  arms  about  my  neck — 

For   the   dainty   room,    with   its   ordered   grace — 
For  my  snowy  linen  without  a  fleck — 

For  the  tender  charm  of  this  uplift  face — 

For  the  softened  light  and  the  homelike  air — 

The  low  luxurious  cannel  fire — 
The  padded  ease  of  my  chosen  chair — 

The  devoted  love  that  discounts  desire — 
196 


UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUNNER 

I  sometimes  think,  when  Twelve  is  struck 
By  the  clock  on  the  mantel,  tinkling  clear, 

I  would  take — and  thank  the  gods  for  the  luck — 
One  single  hour  with  the  Boys  and  the  Beer. 

Where  the  sawdust  scent  of  a  cheap  saloon 
Is  mingled  with  malt;  where  each  man  smokes, 

Where  they  sing  the  street  songs  out  of  tune, 
Talk  Art,  and  bandy  ephemeral  jokes. 

By  Jove,  I  do!     And  all  the  time 

I  know  not  a  man  that  is  there  to-night 

But  would  barter  his  brains  to  be  where  I'm — 
And  I'm  well  aware  that  the  beggars  are  right. 

And  here  is  its  fellow  lyric,  the  'De 
serter'  : 

Scene. — In  Bohemia. 

Glad?    Don't  I  say  so?     Aren't  your  fingers  numb 

where 

They've  felt  the  home-returning  wanderer's  grip? 
Sit  down?     I  will. 

Put  my  umbrella  somewhere 
Where  it  won't  drip. 

My  book— that  parcel— thanks !    What  is  it?  Mrs. 

Barbauld's— no,       I       mean,       Plato's       Nursery 

Rhymes — 

Burton's  Anat — oh,  never  mind  it!    This  is 
Just  like  old  times. 

197 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Thank  you,  I  will  take  something.    No,  not  whiskey. 
I've   cut   that — oh    dear,     yes,    of    course!     from 

choice. 

One    lemonade!      Jove!     I   feel    younger — frisky — 
One  of  the  boys. 

Give  an  account?     Oh,  I've  been  quite  the  rover 
These  two  years — yes,  I've  only  just  got  home. 
Set  out  in  April.     Roughish  passage  over. 
Went  first  to  Rome. 

I  stayed  in  Paris  longer  than  I  meant  to : 

(I  had  to  break  the  trip  there  coming  back 
From  Rome.)     Bonn  was  the  next  place  that  I  went 
to- 
Met  you  there,  Jack. 

You,  with  an  ancient  relative  and  a  Murray — 
Relative's  dead?     I  hope  he  ....   ?     Ah,  that's 

right ! 

I  say,  what  made  you  leave  in  such  a  hurry, 
On  Christmas  night? 

I  got  engaged  that  last  week  in  December. 

— Didn't  you  meet  the  Carletons  in  Bordeaux? 
You  knew  the  girls.     Mine's  Florry.     You  remem 
ber— 

The  blonde,  you  know. 

You— what?    God  bless  me!    And  you  were  refused, 
eh? 

198 


UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUNNER 

Of  course  you  were.     That's  why  you  looked  so 

blue 

That  Christmas?     Ya-as !      I    called    the    following 
Tuesday. 

Sorry  for  you. 

Hope,  though,  since  then,  some  fair  maid  has  con 
soled  you? 

No?    Deuce  you  say.    Poor  fellow,  that's  too  bad. 
My  wife — 

Of  course  I  am!  Hadn't  I  told  you? 
I  thought  I  had. 

Ah,  boys !     These  pleasant  memories   stealing  o'er 

me — 

I  think  I  will  take  a  Cabana  now. 
Thank  you,  old  man.  .  .  . 

You'll  have  to  roll  it  for  me — 
I  forget  how. 

Well,  this  is  pleasant.     'Bacco,  tales  vivacious, 
And  beer.     From  youth's  free  spring  once  more  I 

quaff, 
A  wild  Bohemian. 

Five  o'clock?     Good — gracious! 
So  much?    I'm  off! 

No,  positively  can't.     My  wife — my  dinner. 
Always  in,  evenings ;  people  sometimes  call. 
(Here,     Jack!    one    word — no    grudge    against    the 
winner  ? 

Shake!) 

Good-bye,  all! 
199 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

And — I  suppose  my  small  domestic  heaven 

Wouldn't  much  interest  you?     If  it  did — 
Fellows!  come  up  next  Sunday — tea  at  seven — 
And  .... 

see  .... 

my  kid. 
[Quick  Curtain.] 

As  these  specimens  of  his  stanzas  indi 
cate,  the  editor  of  Puck  contributed  to  its 
columns  verses  of  various  kinds,  sometimes 
broadly  comic,  sometimes  delicately  play 
ful.  His  range  included  "comic  copy" 
neatly  rhymed  and  also  the  more  fanciful 
vers  de  societe.  As  an  example  of  this 
more  difficult  variety  may  be  taken  the 
sequence  of  couplets  which  he  called  'In 
teresting7  : 

I  rowed  her  out  on  the  broad  bright  sea, 
Till  the  land  lay  purple  upon  our  lee. 

The  heavens  were  trying  the  waves  to  outshine, 
With  never  a  cloud  to  the  far  sea-line. 

On  the  reefs  the  billows  in  kisses  broke — 
But  oh,  I  was  dying  for  one  small  smoke. 

She  spoke  of  the  gulls  and  the  waters  green — 
But  what  is  nature  to  Nicotine? 
200 


UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUNNER 

She  spoke  of  the  tides,  and  the  Triton  myth ; 
And  said    Jones    was    engaged    to  the    blonde  Miss 
Smith. 

She  spoke  of  her  liking  lemon  on  clams; 
And  Euclid,  and  parallelograms. 

For  her  face  was  fair  and  her  eyes  were  brown, 
And  she  was  a  girl  from  Boston  town. 

And  I  rowed  and  thought — but  I  never  said — 
"Does  Havana  tobacco  trouble  your  head?" 

She  talked  of  algae — she  talked  of  sand — 
And  I  thought:    "Tobacco  you  cannot  stand." 

She  talked  of  the  ocean-steamers'   speed— 
And  I  yearned  for  a  whiff  of  the  wicked  weed. 

And  at  last  I  spoke,  between  fright  and  fret: 
"Would  you  mind  if  I  smoked  a  cigarette?" 

She  dropped  her  eyes  on  the  ocean's  blue, 

And  said:    "Would  you  mind  if  /  smoked  too?" 

Not  all  of  his  vers  de  societe  were  con 
tributed  to  Puck;  many  of  them  were  pub 
lished  by  the  Century,  which  was  then 
known  as  Scribner's  Monthly.  Among 
these  was  one  poem  which  "went  the  rounds 

201 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

of  the  papers"  when  it  first  appeared,  but 
which  has  since  dropped  out  of  sight,  since 
its  author  refrained  from  reprinting  it;  'In 
a  Paris  Restaurant' : 

I  gaze,  while  thrills  my  heart  with  patriot  pride, 

Upon  the  exquisite  skin,  rose-flushed  and  creamy; 
The  perfect  little  head ;  on  either  side 

Blonde  waves.     The  dark  eyes,  vaguely  soft  and 

dreamy, 
Hold  for  a  space  my  judgment  in  eclipse, 

Until  with  half  a  pout,  supremely  dainty, 
"He's  real  mean"— slips    from    out    the    strawberry 
lips — 

"Oh,  ain't  he?" 

This  at  her  escort,  youthful,  black-moustached 

And    diamond-studded— this    reproof,    whereat   he 
Is  not  to  any  great  extent  abashed. 

(That    youth's    from  "Noo  Orleens"    or  "Cincin- 

natty," 
I'm    sure.)       But    she— those    dark    eyes    doubtful 

strike 

Her  sherbet-ice  ....  Won't  touch  it.  ...  Is  in 
duced  to. 

Result:    "I'd  sooner  eat  Mince-Pie,  Jim,  like 
We  used  to." 

While  then  my  too-soon-smitten  soul  recants, 
I  hear  her  friend  discoursing  with  much  feeling 

202 


UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUNNER 

Of  tailors,  and  a  garment  he  calls  "pants." 
I  note  into  her  eyes  a  softness  stealing— 
A  shade  of  thought  upon  her  low,  sweet  brow — 
She  hears  him  not — I  swear,  I  could  have  cried 

here — 

The  escort  nudges  her — she  starts,  and — "How? 
The  ideer !" 

This  was  the  finishing  and  final  touch. 
I  rose,  and  took  no  further  observation. 
I  love  my  country  "just  about"  as  much — 

I  have  for  it  as  high  a  veneration — 
As  a  man  whose  fathers  fought  for  liberty, 

Whose   veins    conduct   the   blood  of    Commodore 

Perry,  can. 

But  she  was  quite  too  very  awfully 
American. 

To  this  magazine  was  also  contributed 
a  group  of  poems  in  the  fixed  forms  which 
the  younger  versifiers  of  that  day  had  just 
imported  from  France  via  England.  The 
pathetic  little  triolet  on  a  *  Pitcher  of 
Mignonette,'  the  rondels  'She  was  a  Beauty' 
and  'Ready  for  the  Ride,'  a  rondeau  or 
two,  he  preserved  in  his  first  volume  of 
verse;  but  the  most  daring  of  them  all,  a 
triumphant  chant-royal,  always  seemed  to 
203 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

him  to  be  too  broadly  humorous  to  be 
worthy  of  inclusion  among  his  other  poems, 
and  yet  in  no  other  chant-royal  in  English 
have  the  difficulties  of  the  form  been  more 
ingeniously  or  more  successfully  overcome. 
He  gave  it  a  flambuoyant  title,  'Behold  the 
Deeds' : 

[Being  the  Plaint  of  Adolphe  Culpepper  Ferguson, 
Salesman  of  Fancy  Notions,  held  in  durance  of  his 
Landlady  for  a  "failure  to  connect"  on  Saturday 
night.] 

I. 

I  would  that  all  men  my  hard  case  might  know, 

How  grievously  I  suffer  for  no  sin : 
I,  Adolphe  Culpepper  Ferguson,  for  lo! 

I  of  my  landlady  am  locked  in, 
For  being  short  on  this  sad  Saturday, 
Nor  having  shekels  of  silver  wherewith  to  pay: 
She  has  turned  and  is  departed  with  my  key ; 
Wherefore,  not  even  as  other  boarders  free, 

I  sing  (as  prisoners  to  their  dungeon-stones 
When  for  ten  days  they  expiate  a  spree)  ; 

Behold  the  deeds  that  are  done  of  Mrs.  Jones! 

II. 

One  night  and  one  day  have  I  wept  my  woe ; 
Nor  wot  I,  when  the  morrow  doth  begin, 
204 


UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUNNER 

If  I  shall  have  to  write  to  Briggs  &  Co., 

To  pray  them  to  advance  the  requisite  tin 
For  ransom  of  their  salesman,  that  he  may 
Go  forth  as  other  boarders  go  alway— 

As  those  I  hear  now  flocking  from  their  tea, 
Led  by  the  daughter  of  my  landlady 

Piano-ward.     This  day,  for  all  my  moans, 
Dry  bread  and  water  have  been  served  me. 

Behold  the  deeds  that  are  done  of  Mrs.  Jones! 

III. 

Miss  Amabel  Jones  is  musical,  and  so 

The  heart  of  the  young  he-boarder  doth  win, 
Playing  "The  Maiden's  Prayer,"  adagio — 

That  fetcheth  him,  as  fetcheth  the  "bunko  skin" 
The  innocent  rustic.     For  my  part,  I  pray: 
That  Badarjewska  maid  may  wait  for  aye 
Ere  sits  she  with  a  lover,  as  did  we 
Once  sit  together,  Amabel !     Can  it  be 

That  all  that  arduous  wooing  not  atones 
For  Saturday  shortness  of  trade  dollars  three? 
Behold  the  deeds  that  are  done  of  Mrs.  Jones! 

IV. 

Yea!  she  forgets  the  arm  that  was  wont  to  go 
Around  her  waist.     She  wears  a  buckle,  whose 

pin 
Galleth  the  crook  of  the  young  man's  elbow. 

/  forget  not,  for  I  that  youth  have  been. 
Smith  was  aforetime  the  Lothario  gay. 
Yet  once,  I  mind  me,  Smith  was  forced  to  stay 
205 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Close  in  his  room.  Not  calm,  as  I,  was  he; 
But  his  noise  brought  no  pleasaunce,  verily. 

Small  ease  he  gat  of  playing  on  the  bones 
Or  hammering  on  his  stove-pipe,  that  I  see. 

Behold  the  deeds  that  are  done  of  Mrs.  Jones! 

V. 

Thou,  for  whose  fear  the  figurative  crow 

I  eat,  accursed  be  thou  and  all  thy  kin ! 
Thee  will  I  show  up — yea,  up  will  I  show 

Thy  too  thick  buckwheats,  and  thy  tea  too  thin. 
Ay !  here  I  dare  thee,  ready  for  the  fray : 
Thou  dost  not  "keep  a  first-class  house,"  I  say! 
It  dost  not  with  the  advertisements  agree. 
Thou  lodgest  a  Briton  with  a  puggaree. 

And  thou  hast  harbored  Jacobses  and  Cohns, 
Also  a  Mulligan.     Thus  denounce  I  thee ! 
Behold  the  deeds  that  are  done  of  Mrs.  Jones! 

ENVOY. 

Boarders !  the  worst  I  have  not  told  to  ye : 
She  hath  stolen  my  trousers,  that  I  may  not  flee 

Privily  by  the  window.    Hence  these  groans. 
There  is  no  fleeing  in  a  robe  de  nuit. 

Behold  the  deeds  that  are  done  of  Mrs.  Jones ! 

Bunner's   literary    executor,    the    friend 
with  whom   he  had  written   'In   Partner 
ship'  and  to  whom  he  had  dedicated  'Airs 
206 


UNCOLLECTED  POEMS  OF  H.  C.  BUNNER 

from  Arcady,'  made  a  choice  from  the 
verses  which  had  not  been  published  when 
the  poet  died  and  also  from  a  brilliant 
series  of  'Ballads  of  the  Town,'  which  had 
been  contributed  from  time  to  time,  to  the 
pages  of  Puck;  and  these  winnowed  lyrics 
were  appended  to  the  definitive  edition  of 
Runner's  Toems,'  a  single  volume  which  in 
cluded  both  'Airs  from  Arcady'  and 
'Rowen:  Second-Crop  Songs.'  But  none 
of  the  poems,  grave  or  gay,  which  the 
author  himself  had  seen  fit  to  reject  him 
self,  were  allowed  to  find  a  place  in  this 
final  volume,  by  which  he  will  be  judged 
in  the  future.  Yet  these  outcast  verses 
are  not  unworthy  of  their  writer;  and  it 
has  seemed  a  pity  to  let  them  slip  into  the 
swift  oblivion  of  the  back-number.  They 
may  be  rescued  here,  even  though  they 
must  not  ever  be  included  in  the  book 
which  bears  the  poet's  own  name.  After 
all,  the  author  ought  to  have  some  rights, 
and  he  ought  to  be  able  to  pick  and  choose 
those  of  his  own  writings  by  which  he  is 
207 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

willing  to  be  judged.    His  feeling  has  been 
finely  phrased  by  Mr.  Aldrich : 

Take  what  thou  wilt,  a  lyric  or  a  line, 

Take  all,  take  nothing, — and  God  send  thee  cheer ! 
But  my  anathema  on  thee  and  thine 

If  thou  add'st  aught  to  what  is  printed  here! 

(1896). 


308 


XI 

THE    STRANGEST    FEAT    OF 
MODERN    MAGIC 

IN  the  extremely  interesting  address  of 
Dr.  Oliver  Lodge,  F.R.S.,  as  pres 
ident  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  which  is  printed    in   the 
proceedings    of    the    Society    for    March, 
1902,  there  is  a  careful  scientific  considera 
tion  of  various  alleged  occurrences  which 
seem  to  be  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nature  as 
we  now  understand  them.  Professor  Lodge 
discusses  the  proper  attitude  of  a  man  of 
science  toward    these    alleged  phenomena; 
and  he  deplores  the  inveterate  antagonism 
between  orthodox  science  and  the  accumu 
lating  evidence  that  certain  phenomena  do 
occur  now  and  again  which  seem  to  be  con 
trary  to  natural  custom.     He  explains  this 
antagonism  as  due  to  the  fact  that  "Science 
209 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

has  a  horror  of  the  unintelligible;  it  can 
make  nothing  of  a  capricious  and  disor 
derly  agent,  and  it  prefers  to  ignore  the  ex 
istence  of  any  such." 

But  the  attempt  to  ignore  is  in  itself  un 
scientific.  It  is  the  duty  of  Science  to  know 
— to  know  all  that  is  to  be  known — and 
continually  to  extend  the  boundaries  of 
knowledge,  even  though  it  is  unable  always 
to  explain  the  immediate  cause  of  every  fact 
that  it  records. 

Then  Professor  Lodge  dismisses  as  un 
proved  a  host  of  alleged  wonders  of  one 
kind  or  another,  and  he  declares  that  full 
allowance  must  be  made  for  "the  ingenious 
and  able  impositions  of  a  conjurer."  He 
asserts  that  some  of  the  psychical  phenom 
ena  proclaimed  to  have  occurred  "bear  a 
perilous  resemblance  to  conjuring  tricks," 
which  can  be  very  deceptive.  He  warns  us 
that  extreme  caution  is  necessary,  and  full 
control  must  be  allowed  to  the  observers. 
He  insists,  moreover,  that  in  so  far  as  those 
professing  to  perform  wonders  demand 

210 


STRANGEST   FEAT   OF  MODERN   MAGIC 

their  own* conditions  they  must  be  content 
to  be  teated  as  conjurers. 

There  is  one  marvel  wrought  by  the 
greatest  of  modern  conjurers  of  which  we 
have  a  true  record,  left  us  by  the  performer 
himself,  who  has  told  us  what  it  was  that  he 
seemed  to  do,  but  who  has  not  explained 
how  he  was  able  to  accomplish  the  extra 
ordinary  feat.  Robert-Houdin  was  the 
creator  of  the  latter-day  methods  of  mod 
ern  magic;  he  was  the  inventor  of  many  of 
the  most  ingenious  and  novel  illusions,  in 
cluding  the  intricate  and  puzzling  exhibi 
tion  known  as  "second-sight."  He  defined 
himself  as  ua  comedian  playing  the  charac 
ter  of  a  magician."  Late  in  life  he  wrote 
an  account  of  his  many  adventures;  and 
these  "Confidences  of  a  Prestidigitator"  are 
worthy  of  comparison  with  all  but  the  very 
best  autobiographies — if  not  with  Cellini's 
and  Franklin's,  at  least  with  Gibber's  and 
Goldoni's.  Robert-Houdin's  life  of  him 
self,  quite  as  well  as  any  of  the  others, 
would  justify  Longfellow's  assertion  that 

211 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

"autobiography  is  what   biography   ought 
to  be." 

The  special  feat  of  Robert-Houdin's 
which  has  been  mentioned  was  devised  by 
him  for  exhibition  in  a  palace  and  before  a 
king — circumstances  which  exclude  all  sug 
gestion  of  collusion  or  confederacy  on  the 
part  of  the  audience.  He  tells  us  that  in 
1846  he  was  summoned  to  the  Palace  of 
Saint-Cloud  to  give  a  performance  before 
Louis  Philippe  and  the  royal  family.  He 
had  six  days  to  make  all  his  arrangements, 
and  he  invented  one  new  trick  for  the  occa 
sion — a  trick  which  could  not  possibly  have 
been  performed  under  any  other  circum 
stances.  He  tells  us  that  early  on  the  ap 
pointed  morning  a  wagon  from  the  royal 
stables  came  to  fetch  him  (and  his  son,  who 
assisted  him),  and  to  convey  all  his  varied 
paraphernalia.  A  stage  had  been  set  up  in 
one  of  the  large  saloons  of  the  palace,  the 
windows  of  which  opened  out  on  the  broad 
and  beautiful  gardens,  with  their  double 
rows  of  orange-trees,  each  growing  in  its 

212 


STRANGEST    FEAT  OF   MODERN    MAGIC 

square  box  on  wheels.  A  sentry  was  placed 
at  the  door  to  see  that  the  conjurer  was  not 
disturbed  in  his  preparations.  The  King 
himself  dropped  in  once  to  ask  the  enter 
tainer  if  he  had  everything  necessary. 

At  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the 
King  and  the  Queen,  the  members  of  the 
royal  family,  and  a  certain  number  of 
invited  guests  had  assembled.  The  cur 
tains  were  parted;  and  Robert-Houdin 
began  to  amuse  and  to  puzzle  his 
distinguished  audience.  He  reserved  for 
the  end  of  his  programme  the  so- 
called  second-sight  in  which  the  son,  blind 
folded  on  the  stage,  named  one  after  an 
other  all  the  objects  which  came  into  the 
father's  hands,  and  even  described  them  at 
length,  giving  the  dates  on  coins  and  the 
inscriptions  on  watches.  It  was  almost  at 
the  end  of  the  programme,  and  just  before 
the  exhibition  of  second-sight,  that  Robert- 
Houdin  accomplished  the  equally  astonish 
ing  trick  which  he  had  invented  for  the  oc 
casion.  In  setting  forth  this  feat  we  can 
213 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

follow  his  own  accurate  but  summary  ac 
count  in  the  autobiography. 

He  began  by  borrowing  half  a  dozen 
handkerchiefs  from  his  noble  spectators. 
These  he  took  back  to  the  stage  and  made 
into  a  package,  which  he  left  upon  his  table. 
Then  he  came  down  again  among  the  audi 
ence  with  a  pack  of  blank  visiting-cards  in 
his  hand.  He  distributed  these  here  and 
there  among  the  spectators,  requesting 
every  one  who  received  a  card  to  write  the 
name  of  a  place  where  he  or  she  would  like 
the  handkerchiefs  to  be  conveyed  instantly 
and  invisibly.  When  a  sufficient  number 
of  these  cards  had  been  written  to  insure  a 
large  variety  of  choice,  Robert-Houdin 
gathered  them  up  and  went  over  to  Louis 
Philippe. 

The  conjurer  asked  the  King  to  pick  out 
three  cards  and  then  to  decide  to  which  of 
the  three  places  designated  thereon  he  de 
sired  to  have  the  handkerchiefs  transported. 

"Let  us  see,"  said  the  monarch,  as  he 
looked  at  the  first  card  he  had  taken.  Then 
214 


STRANGEST   FEAT   OF  MODERN   MAGIC 

he  read,  "I  desire  that  the  handkerchiefs 
should  be  found  under  one  of  the  candela 
bra  on  the  chimney."  The  King  looked  up 
and  said,  "That  is  too  easy  for  a  sorcerer." 
So  he  read  the  writing  on  the  second  card, 
"that  the  handkerchiefs  should  be  carried 
to  the  dome  of  the  Invalides."  With  his 
customary  shrewdness  the  King  commented 
on  this,  saying  that  it  might  suit  if  it  was 
not  a  great  deal  too  far  away,  "not  for  the 
handkerchiefs — but  for  us." 

Finally,  Louis  Philippe  glanced  at  the 
third  card,  which  he  did  not  read  aloud  at 
once,  as  he  had  read  the  others. 

"Ah,  ha!"  he  said,  "I'm  rather  afraid 
that  this  would  puzzle  you !  Do  you  know 
what  it  proposes?" 

"Will  your  majesty  be  kind  enough  to 
inform  me?"  answered  Robert-Houdin. 

"This  card,"  answered  the  monarch, 
"expresses  the  wish  that  you  should  cause 
the  handkerchiefs  to  pass  inside  the  box  in 
which  an  orange-tree  is  growing,  the  last 
one  on  the  right." 

215 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

Robert-Houdin  answered,  promptly,  uls 
that  all,  Sire?  Give  the  order  and  I  will 
obey." 

"So  be  it,"  Louis  Philippe  responded; 
"I  shall  not  be  sorry  to  see  a  deed  of  magic. 
So  I  choose  the  box  of  the  orange-tree." 

Then  the  King  whispered  an  order  or 
two,  and  several  persons  ran  out  promptly 
into  the  garden  and  stationed  themselves 
about  the  orange-tree — "guarding  against 
any  fraud,"  as  Robert-Houdin  himself 
puts  it. 

The  magician  went  back  on  the  stage, 
and,  putting  the  package  of  handkerchiefs 
on  the  centre  of  his  table,  he  covered  it  with 
a  ground-glass  bowl.  Then,  taking  his 
wand,  he  tapped  on  the  bowl  and  bade  the 
handkerchiefs  begone  to  their  appointed 
place.  When  he  lifted  the  glass  the  little 
package  had  disappeared;  and  in  its  stead 
there  was  a  white  turtle-dove  with  a  ribbon 
about  its  neck. 

At  this  moment  the  King  went  swiftly  to 
the  glass  door,  through  which  he  could  see 
216 


STRANGEST   FEAT    OF   MODERN    MAGIC 

out  into  the  garden;  he  wanted  to  make 
sure  that  his  messengers  were  keeping  faith 
ful  guard  over  the  orange-tree. 

Turning  to  the  conjurer  with  an  ironic 
smile,  he  said:  "Ah,  Monsieur  le  Sorcier, 
I'm  doubtful  about  the  virtue  of  your  magic 
wand!" 

Then  the  King  gave  orders  to  call  the 
master-gardener  and  to  tell  him  to  open  the 
box  of  the  orange-tree  at  the  end  of  the 
row  on  the  right. 

The  master-gardener  came  immediately; 
and  although  greatly  astonished  at  the 
order,  he  began  work  at  once  on  the 
front  of  the  box.  Soon  he  had  removed 
one  of  the  upright  panels  of  which  it  was 
composed. 

Apparently  he  found  the  soil  undisturb 
ed,  as  he  inserted  his  hand  carefully  in 
among  the  roots  of  the  growing  tree  with 
out  discovering  anything. 

Suddenly  a  cry  of  surprise  broke  from 
him;  and  he  withdrew  his  hand,  holding  a 
small  iron  casket  eaten  with  rust. 
217 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

This  strange  treasure-trove,  scraped  clean 
of  the  soil  that  incrusted  it,  was  brought  in 
and  placed  on  a  little  table  near  the  King. 

"Well,  monsieur,"  cried  Louis  Philippe, 
with  a  movement  of  impatient  curiosity, 
"here's  a  box.  Are  the  handkerchiefs  con 
tained  in  that,  by  some  strange  chance?" 

"Yes,  Sire,"  the  conjurer  replied,  with 
assurance.  "They  are  there — and  they 
have  been  there  for  a  very  long  while !" 

"A  long  while?"  returned  the  monarch; 
"how  can  that  be,  as  it  is  not  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  since  the  handkerchiefs  were  given 
to  you?" 

"I  cannot  deny  that,  Sire,"  responded  the 
magician;  "but  where  would  the  magic  be 
if  I  could  not  accomplish  things  absolutely 
incomprehensible?  No  doubt,  your  maj 
esty  will  be  even  more  surprised  when  I 
prove  beyond  all  question  that  this  casket 
and  what  it  contains  were  deposited  in  the 
box  of  the  orange-tree  sixty  years  ago !" 

"I  should  like  to  be  able  to  take  your 
word  for  it,"  said  the  King,  smiling;  "but 
218 


STRANGEST  FEAT  OF    MODERN   MAGIC 

really  I  cannot  do  that.  In  a  case  like  this 
I  shall  insist  on  proof." 

"If  your  majesty  will  only  open  the  iron 
casket,"  returned  the  conjurer,  "you  will 
find  therein  abundant  proof  of  what  I  have 
asserted." 

"Before  I  can  open  the  casket,  I  must 
have  the  key,"  objected  the  monarch. 

"You  can  have  the  key,  Sire,  whenever 
you  please,"  explained  the  magician.  "You 
have  only  to  detach  it  from  the  neck  of  the 
turtle-dove." 

Louis  Philippe  untied  the  ribbon  which 
was  around  the  neck  of  the  bird,  and  which 
held  a  little  rusty  key.  With  this  the  King 
hastily  opened  the  casket. 

The  first  object  that  presented  itself  to 
the  eyes  of  the  monarch  was  a  parchment. 
He  took  it  up  and  opened  it.  This  is  what 
he  read: 

"To-day,  June  6,  1786. 
"This  iron  box,  containing  six  handker 
chiefs,  was  placed  within  the  roots  of  an 
219 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

orange-tree  by  me,  Bahama,  Count  Cagli- 
ostro,  to  be  used  in  the  accomplishing  of  an 
act  of  magic,  which  shall  be  performed 
sixty  years  from  to-day,  before  Louis  Phi 
lippe  and  his  family." 

"Decidedly,"  remarked  the  monarch, 
now  even  more  astonished,  uthis  smacks  of 
witchcraft.  Nothing  is  lacking,  since  both 
the  signature  and  seal  of  the  celebrated  sor 
cerer  are  here  at  the  bottom  of  this  docu 
ment,  which,  God  forgive  me,  seems  to 
smell  of  sulphur." 

To  this  gracious  pleasantry  of  the  sov 
ereign  the  courtiers  paid  the  proper  tribute 
of  laughter. 

Then  the  King  took  from  out  the  box  a 
carefully  sealed  package  of  parchment. 

"Is  it  possible,"  he  asked,  "that  the 
handkerchiefs  are  wrapped  in  this?" 

"Indeed,  Sire,  that  is  where  they  are," 
answered  Robert-Houdin.  "But  before 
opening  I  beg  that  your  majesty  will  note 
that  the  package  is  also  sealed  with  the  seal 
of  Count  Cagliostro." 
220 


STRANGEST   FEAT  OF   MODERN   MAGIC 

"Certainly,"  said  the  monarch,  looking 
twice  at  the  red  wax  with  its  firm  impres 
sion.  "It  is  the  same." 

And  immediately  the  King,  impatient  to 
discover  the  contents  of  the  packet,  tore  it 
open,  and  spread  out  before  the  spectators 
the  six  handkerchiefs  which  the  conjurer 
had  borrowed  only  a  few  minutes  earlier. 

This  is  the  account  Robert-Houdin  him 
self  gives;  and  it  may  be  well  to  record  that 
he  always  bore  the  reputation  of  being  a 
truthful  man.  Nothing  more  extraordinary 
was  ever  performed  by  any  mere  conjurer; 
indeed,  this  feat  is  quite  as  startling  as  any 
of  those  attributed  to  Cagliostro  himself, 
and  it  has  the  advantage  of  being  accurately 
and  precisely  narrated  by  the  inventor.  Not 
only  is  the  thing  done  a  seeming  impossi 
bility,  but  it  stands  forth  the  more  impres 
sively  because  of  the  spectacular  circum 
stances  of  its  performance — a  stately  pal 
ace,  a  lovely  garden,  the  assembled  cour 
tiers  and  the  royal  family.  The  magician 
had  to  depend  on  his  wits  alone,  for  he  was 

221 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

deprived  of  all  the  advantages  of  his  own 
theatre  and  of  all  possibility  of  aid  from  a 
confederate  mingled  amid  the  casual  specta 
tors. 

Robert-Houdin  was  justified  in  the  gentle 
pride  with  which  he  told  how  he  had  thus 
astonished  the  King  of  the  French.  He  re 
frained  from  any  explanation  of  the  means 
whereby  he  wrought  his  mystery,  believing 
that  what  is  unknown  is  ever  the  more  mag 
nificent.  He  did  no  more  than  drop  a  hint 
or  two,  telling  the  reader  that  he  had  long 
possessed  a  cast  of  Cagliostro's  seal,  and 
suggesting  slyly  that  when  the  King  sent 
messengers  out  into  the  garden  to  stand 
guard  over  the  orange-tree  the  trick  was  al 
ready  done,  and  all  precautions  were  then 
futile. 

Yet,  although  the  inventonchose  to  keep 
his  secret,  any  one  who  has  mastered  the 
principles  of  the  art  of  magic  can  venture 
an  explanation.  Robert-Houdin  has  set 
forth  the  facts  honestly ;  and  with  the  facts 
solidly  established  it  is  possible  to  reason 

222 


STRANGEST   FEAT  OF   MODERN    MAGIC 

out  the  method  employed  to  accomplish  a 
deed  which,  at  first  sight,  seems  not  only 
impossible  but  incomprehensible. 

The  first  point  to  be  emphasized  is  that 
Robert-Houdin  was  as  dexterous  as  he  was 
ingenious.  He  was  truly  a  prestidigitator, 
capable  of  any  sleight-of-hand.  Nothing 
was  simpler  for  so  accomplished  a  per 
former  than  the  substitution  of  one  package 
for  another,  right  before  the  eyes  of  all  the 
spectators.  And  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  although  the  palace  was  the  King's  the 
apparatus  on  the  extemporized  stage  was 
the  magician's.  Therefore,  when  he  bor 
rowed  six  handkerchiefs  and  went  up  on  the 
stage  and  made  them  up  into  a  package, 
which  remained  on  a  table  in  sight  of  every 
body,  we  can  grant  without  difficulty  that 
the  package  which  remained  in  sight  did 
not  then  contain  the  borrowed  handker 
chiefs. 

In  fact,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  borrow 
ed  handkerchiefs  had  been  conveyed  some 
how  to  Robert-Houdin's  son,  who  acted  as 
223 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

his  assistant.  When  the  handkerchiefs  were 
once  in  the  possession  of  the  son  out  of 
sight  behind  the  scenery  or  hangings  of  the 
stage,  the  father  would  pick  up  his  pack  of 
blank  visiting-cards  and  distribute  a  dozen 
of  them  or  a  score,  moving  to  and  fro  in 
very  leisurely  fashion,  perhaps  going  back 
to  the  stage  to  get  pencils,  which  he  would 
also  give  out  as  slowly  as  possible,  filling  up 
the  time  with  playful  pleasantry,  until  he 
should  again  catch  sight  of  his  son.  Then, 
and  not  until  then,  would  he  feel  at  liberty 
to  collect  the  cards  and  take  them  over  to 
the  King. 

When  the  son  had  got  possession  of  the 
handkerchiefs,  he  would  smooth  them 
swiftly,  possibly  even  ironing  them  into 
their  folds.  Then  he  would  put  them  into 
the  parchment  packet,  which  he  would  seal 
twice  with  Cagliostro's  seal.  Laying  them 
in  the  bottom  of  the  rusty  iron  casket, 
he  would  put  on  top  the  other  parchment, 
which  had  already  been  prepared,  with  its 
adroit  imitation  of  Cagliostro's  handwrit- 
224 


STRANGEST  FEAT   OF    MODERN    MAGIC 

ing.  Snapping  down  the  lid  of  the  casket, 
the  lad  would  slip  out  into  the  corridor  and 
steal  into  the  garden,  going  straight  to  the 
box  of  the  appointed  orange-tree.  He 
could  do  this  unobserved,  because  no  one 
was  then  suspecting  him,  and  because  all 
the  spectators  were  then  engaged  in  think 
ing  up  odd  places  to  which  the  handker 
chiefs  might  be  transported.  Already,  in 
the  long  morning,  probably  while  the  royal 
household  was  at  its  midday  breakfast,  the 
father  or  the  son  had  loosened  one  of  the 
staples  in  the  back  of  the  box  in  which  the 
designated  orange-tree  was  growing.  The 
lad  now  removed  this  staple  and  thrust  the 
casket  into  the  already-prepared  hole  in  the 
centre  of  the  roots  of  the  tree.  Then  he  re 
placed  the  staple  at  the  back  of  the  box, 
feeling  certain  that  whoever  should  open 
the  box  in  front  would  find  the  soil  undis 
turbed.  This  most  difficult  part  of  the  task 
once  accomplished,  he  returned  to  the  stage, 
or  at  least  in  some  way  he  signified  to  his 
father  that  he  had  accomplished  his  share 
225 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

of  the  wonder,  in  the  performance  of  which 
he  was  not  supposed  to  have  any  part. 

On  seeing  his  son,  or  on  receiving  the  sig 
nal  that  his  son  had  returned,  Robert-Hou- 
din  would  feel  himself  at  liberty  to  collect 
the  cards  on  which  various  spectators  had 
written  the  destinations  they  proposed  for 
the  package  of  handkerchiefs,  which  was 
still  in  full  sight.  He  gathered  up  the  cards 
he  had  distributed;  but  as  he  went  toward 
the  King  he  substituted  for  those  written  by 
the  spectators  others  previously  prepared 
by  himself — a  feat  of  sleight-of-hand  quite 
within  the  reach  of  any  ordinary  performer. 
Of  these  cards,  prepared  by  himself,  he 
forced  three  on  the  sovereign; — and  the 
forcing  of  cards  upon  a  kindly  monarch 
would  present  little  difficulty  to  a  presti 
digitator  of  Robert-Houdin's  consummate 
skill. 

When  the  three  cards  were  once  in  the 

King's  hands,  the  trick  was  done,  for  Rob- 

ert-Houdin  knew  Louis  Philippe  to  be  a 

shrewd  man  in  small  matters.  Therefore,  it 

226 


STRANGEST   FEAT   OF  MODERN   MAGIC 

was  reasonably  certain  that  when  the  King 
had  to  make  a  choice  out  of  three  places, 
one  near  and  easy,  a  second  remote  and  diffi 
cult,  and  a  third  both  near  and  difficult, 
Louis  Philippe  would  surely  select  the 
third,  which  was  conveniently  at  hand,  and 
which  seemed  to  be  at  least  as  impossible  as 
either  of  the  others. 

The  event  proved  that  the  conjurer's 
analysis  of  the  King's  character  was  accu 
rate;  yet  one  may  venture  the  opinion  that 
the  magician  had  taken  every  needed  pre 
caution  to  avoid  failure,  even  if  the  mon 
arch  had  made  another  selection.  Proba 
bly  Robert-Houdin  had  one  little  parch 
ment  packet  hidden  in  advance  somewhere 
in  the  dome  of  the  Invalides  and  another 
tucked  up  out  of  sight  in  the  base  of  one  of 
the  candelabra  on  the  chimney-piece;  and  if 
either  of  the  other  destinations  had  been 
chosen,  the  substitute  packet  would  have 
been  produced,  and  the  magician  would 
then  have  offered  to  transport  it  also  into 
the  box  of  the  orange-tree.  And  thus  the 
227 


RECREATIONS  OF  AN  ANTHOLOGIST 

startling  climax  of  the  marvel  would  have 
been  only  a  little  delayed. 

When  so  strange  a  wonder  can  be 
wrought  under  such  circumstances  by  means 
so  simple,  we  cannot  but  feel  the  force  of 
Dr.  Lodge's  warning  that  an  unwavering 
scepticism  ought  to  be  the  attitude  of  all 
honest  investigators  toward  every  one  who 
professes  to  be  able  to  suspend  the  opera 
tion  of  a  custom  of  nature.  No  one  of  the 
feats  attributed  to  Home,  the  celebrated 
medium  who  plied  his  trade  in  Paris  during 
the  Second  Empire,  was  more  abnormal 
than  this  trick  of  Robert-Houdin's,  and  no 
one  of  them  is  so  well  authenticated.  It 
may  be  that  certain  of  the  customs  of  nature 
are  not  inexorable,  and  that  we  shall 
be  able  to  discover  exceptions  now  and 
again.  But  the  proof  of  any  alleged  excep 
tion,  the  evidence  in  favor  of  any  alleged 
violation  of  the  custom  of  nature,  ought  to 
be  overwhelming. 

(1902). 

THE  END. 

228 


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